Another one is that the glue on the envelopes is of very low quality, causing them to either stick together before you're ready to mail them, or to refuse to adhere when you lick them. And don't even get me started on automated telephone 'bots.

Maybe its deliberate... its a psychological ploy to convince us to sign up to giving them authorization to bill our credit card automatically, or even provide them access to our bank account. Except, of course, when you try to get out of the arrangement, there's no way to do it, no phone number, no email address, no way of contacting them directly and getting human feedback except by "getting an account", which means all the hassle of managing that and revealing all your commercial behavior and preferences, as well.

I'm not just being facetious or trying to be humorous here, these people are so determined to squeeze every last penny out of us, or failing that, shift more and more of their management and administrative costs to us, that they are demonstrating the total disdain and contempt they have for their customers. In spite of all the pious rhetoric about "serving their clients" we're just sheep to be fleeced as far as they are concerned.

The problem is not technology. Technology is morally neutral. The problem is the ethos of Capitalism. This nation of shopkeepers despise anyone who isn't one of them, and they feel morally justified to sodomize us in any way possible. We deserve to be exploited. Follow any societal evil to its ultimate source, and you inevitably wind up face-to-face with a drooling business major.