These days, by the time people contact tech support, they're angry and they're desperate. The desperation stems from the expectation a long wait after which they'll receive scant help from ill-equipped operators, and the anger anticipates that the whole effort will be fruitless.

The software industry has trained people to expect this.

Its current solution to the problem, unfortunately, is to price the near-certainty of failure into the product. After all, how angry can the angry villagers be if they only spent 99 cents?

We've got to find a better way.