> We are seeing a transition from the user as a customer to the user as a resource.

I'd argue that this started 30 years ago when automated phone trees started replacing the first line of workers and making users figure out how to navigate where they needed to in order to get the service they needed.

I can't remember if chat bots or "knowledge bases" came first, but that was the next step in the "figure it out yourself" attitude corporations adopted (under the guise of empowering users to "self help").

Then we started letting corporations use the "we're just too big to actually have humans deal with things" excuse (eg online moderation, or paid services with basically no support).

And all these companies look at each other to see who can lower the bar next and jump on the bandwagon.

It's one of my "favorite" rants, I guess.

The way I see this next era going is that it's basically going to become exclusively the users' responsibility to figure out how to talk to the bots to solve any issue they have.