Although people go over the top in rudeness, which doesn't help anyone, it's a fact that a lot of bug reports by customers to big companies get ignored. So the screaming is not entirely unwarranted.
If user satisfaction is mapped on the X-axis of real numbers, doing beyond-the-call-of-duty service for a customer with negative user satisfaction is equivalent to multiplying by -1.
Yes, but if a rogue SMS message messed up your relationship with someone, such rationality might be lost.
And there's always strength in numbers, if 2000 people complain about something (ignoring the language), it tends to get noticed more than if 1 person would report it and the rest thinks "hey, it's already reported, let's shut up and wait".
I'm rather sure that it does. Imagine it was coming in on telephone support - which bug is getting the most attention, the one with two reports or the one that's getting 200 calls an hour. The difference in visibility to management would have been dramatic anywhere I've worked.
