> Amazon is the only FAANG company where I can get a hold of an actual real person.

The other A in FAANG has actual real stores with actual real people who you can talk to.

Real people who will tell you that your minor, fixable, hardware or software issue is impossible to repair, or would cost twice the price or the device, so you are advised to buy a new one or upgrade. The main reason amazon's support is so great is because they have almost zero stakes in it. They offload the blame and costs to the sellers or manufacturers most of the time because they can.

>The other A in FAANG

Oh man. I was sitting here thinking "Albertson's"??? And then it hit me- Apple.

As a developer or consumer?

Amazon and Apple both sell physical products.

Google and Facebook are ad driven companies.

Netflix sells digital content.

Should it really be surprising that Apple and Amazon get real people to talk with us?

If you have cloud billing issues, such as the crypto mining described here, you can reach a human and get it reverted at the other clouds. Not sure the author is making a valid comparison between cloud and company services. There are many horror stories of businesses on the Amazon store who have not been able to reach a human.

I've personally talked to Google Cloud support on many occasions and had billing disputes reversed.

I've talked to customer service on the store side.

I had an odd return situation no credit received. Expensive item. Was handled very well by them. Real person, did some research etc.

On the AWS side way back at least the support offering was way above in terms of value for cost (it was like a token $100/month at a basic level).

I knew someone who had a secret hotline to the Google indexing team. For the rest of us it is "talk to the hand"

Been on the phone with Apple a few times

As a normal consumer, I've been able to get through on free customer service lines at Amazon, Apple and Netflix.

Google? Nope. It's impossible to get support there.

Facebook? I've never used their products, so I don't have any information.