They say the economy has grown so much since then, but in the early 1990s you could quickly get a human on the phone 24 hours a day from most larger firms. The humans haven’t gotten more expensive, in real terms, especially given the virtualization and offshoring of call centers. It’s just that somebody has gotten so much richer we can’t afford for them to pick up. cf vox.com/23571375/no-call-cente