hopeful122

> Question: why does the market fail so miserably in this respect?

It didn't. There are Apple stores all around the world, full of people ready to help seniors in person or over the phone, on a really nice computer.

> It's stuff like this that leads people to just "give up" and buy an expensive Apple device.

Yes.

> Us IC bottom feeders are 'cattle' to corporations; it seems some have decided to treat companies as 'fodder'.

This is appealing, but these people are pretty well compensated all things considered.

A subordinate of mine tried to do this at my startup, where there was no bureaucracy and people were definitely not under-utilized. I am pretty sure this was just motivated by greed.