Houston, we have a problem: the quality and availability of technical support continues to dwindle in the world of high-tech, while its cost to end-users keeps going up. Apple customers in particular have felt the pinch in recent years, as the company moved from "unlimited lifetime toll-free support" to a more "Microsoft-like" (Apple's words, not ours) pay-per-incident plan after the first ninety days of ownership. But of course we're not the only ones getting shafted on support charges: Microsoft, the company that Apple apparently looks to as its Shining Example when it comes to support, has just tightened the screws still further. According to ZDNet News, in September the Redmond Giant will be eliminating its policy of ninety days of free phone support for Windows and Office customers.

Instead, Microsoft is giving its customers two free phone calls. (That's only one more than you get if you're hauled downtown for carjacking.) After those two freebies, the next time your Registry spontaneously scrambles itself, or Excel suddenly starts printing the number "6" as a lowercase "q," you'll be charged $35 a call. Our concern is that, since Apple's chosen to copy Microsoft's support structure in the past, soon Mac buyers will get the same deal: two calls instead of ninety days. For some people that might be an improvement, because their first problems may not arise until after those first three months are up; but for most newbies, those two calls might vanish awfully quickly. Luckily, Macs are probably going to inspire fewer tech support calls by nature of being easier to use, but still-- it's a disturbing trend to watch.

In fact, AtAT's elite staff of statistical projectionists estimate that if this trend continues, by the year 2002, baseline technical support in the high-tech industry will consist entirely of unmanned automated "hold" lines; you'll dial the number, a friendly recording will announce that there are no technicians currently available to take your call (which is true), and you'll be instructed to "stay on the line, because your call is important to us." You'll then be subjected to audio ads of the company's other bug-ridden products interspersed with Muzak renditions of Lynyrd Skynyrd songs until you hang up in frustration and fix the problem yourself.

By 2004, calling the technical support number provided with your computer or software will send a taser-style electrical charge through your telephone handset, rendering you immobile and twitching for several minutes, thus conditioning you never to dial that number again.

By 2006, the "negative conditioned response" shock lines will have fallen out of favor for being too expensive to maintain. Artificial intelligence and voice synthesis will have progressed to the point where cheap "virtual technicians" will man the phones, programmed to interact with customers by suggesting as many actions as possible that absolutely will not fix the stated problem. The idea is to keep the caller on the phone as long as possible-- because technical support lines will be $6.95-a-minute 900 numbers, and will account for 70-80% of most high-tech companies' total revenue. (Product developers will be paid top dollar to introduce as many creative yet plausible bugs as possible.)

The only way to avoid this terrifying future is for some industry-leading company to recognize that technical support is a priority instead of an afterthought-- that terrific technical support, implemented properly, could be a big word-of-mouth and press-attracting marketing asset, a differentiating factor amid a swarming flood of competitors, instead of a big write-off on the balance sheet. It's a radical concept, to be sure, but we can think of one or two companies that have taken crazy gambles in the past. All we need is someone to step in and think different. Ly. Whatever.