The key to a company providing good service is competition.
Look at Comcast, one of the most hated consumer companies, it charges for service but its interests are not aligned with its customers because it operates regional monopolies so their interest is in extracting as much money for as little service as possible from the locked-in users.
Compare with Apple, it operates in the highly competitive consumer electronics industry and that helps make it a world leader in customer satisfaction.
Now look at American mobile phone service operators. There exists a decently competitive market with 4 main companies, but the standard 2-year contract lock-in means all the competition happens mostly at customer acquisition where you see big deals on discount phones. But after the customer is locked-in they operate more like monopolies with hidden charges and poor service.
As for social networks, the network-effect lock-in is a huge impediment to good market competition. Once someone has their social network in place it makes it very difficult to switch. So I would think the incentives are more similar to the mobile phone market, pro-consumer at acquisition and then not so much afterwards.
Look at Comcast, one of the most hated consumer companies, it charges for service but its interests are not aligned with its customers because it operates regional monopolies so their interest is in extracting as much money for as little service as possible from the locked-in users.
Compare with Apple, it operates in the highly competitive consumer electronics industry and that helps make it a world leader in customer satisfaction.
Now look at American mobile phone service operators. There exists a decently competitive market with 4 main companies, but the standard 2-year contract lock-in means all the competition happens mostly at customer acquisition where you see big deals on discount phones. But after the customer is locked-in they operate more like monopolies with hidden charges and poor service.
As for social networks, the network-effect lock-in is a huge impediment to good market competition. Once someone has their social network in place it makes it very difficult to switch. So I would think the incentives are more similar to the mobile phone market, pro-consumer at acquisition and then not so much afterwards.