I've found that more and more customer support things are being automated to prevent you from actually talking to a human at all, and quite often these tools don't work in any meaningful way. They'll misunderstand, redirect, ignore, or otherwise tell you that it can't help you. Couple this with anything outside of the straight-forward flow of common issues and you're stuck in a loop of insanity.

Dealing with Uber Eats' support is fine when it works and your case is typical - missing food item? Okay, they refund you. Your driver hasn't arrived in over two hours and you don't want to eat cold and potentially mishandled food? Tough shit, you can't cancel that order because it's in progress and will have to pay for the order if you try.

This sort of thing has become more and more prevalent to the point where I actively avoid using companies' products that I know are user-hostile. Unfortunately, Uber/Uber Eats are the safest choice where I live, so you can only really do so when there is the luxury of choice.

Similar to the Walmart example in the article; if Walmart is the cheapest, closest, or otherwise most-convenient, you'll complain about Walmart inside Walmart but still keep going back because the effort required to switch is greater than dealing with random frustrations.

I sort of end up becoming more persistent and escalatory when confronted with these sorts of walls. I've noticed that Uber Eats support is magically better when you use very negative language because I assume their systems detect the sentiment in your language and perhaps escalate better to avoid losing a customer. It's stupid but it works, and feels bad to use, but fortunately doesn't happen often.

If a company only escalates when customers are frustrated to the point of borderline-abuse of a representative, they're pretty much enforcing the abuse and negatively affecting the health of their employees on purpose. It's very difficult to remain completely calm and level-headed after weeks of dead ends and absurdity.