> It's a cheap win with investors who want to hear about AI initiatives to lay off yet even more of this department, because it doesn't matter if the quality of service declines, there are no market or regulatory forces that are punishing this well enough to ever expect firms to stop breaking it, let alone fix it

There's also some argument that, if people cannot get customer service to "help" they stop asking for help - driving that cost down.

And not having to remedy issues in the product = no repair/replace cost

And people are then left with only a few options, one of which... buy a replacement... which in a restricted market is a WIN because more money coming in...