Any fellow olds remember the hotlines for video games?
I called a few back in the day for clues. Sonic 3, Tomb Raider 4 (I think), Overblood (lol) were a few games that stumped me as a baby child. This was long before I had internet let alone a PC that could connect.
It was something like 5-6 bucks per minute a total rip off to have someone tell you you're a dummy for not looking up and pressing 'A'.
It's just capitalist sales bullshit dressed up in woowoo. Officially my job was to keep people on the phone as long as possible to get as much money as possible and sell them subscriptions and shit, but they were usually quite sad and looking for the kinds of specific advice and answers you can't get from tarot, and it felt cruel to advertise to someone who was hurting or keep them on the phone when I wasn't helping them. I was very bad at the pushy-salesy part of the job, which was the important part to my bosses, so I only lasted a month or so.