"I just couldn’t see how they could scale support when WooCommerce had taken off so incredibly. And as I saw them hire more and more friends to help them, I started doing math."

Better get that calculator and recalculate then. Justin Tadlock apparently supports 10,000 users all by himself, just one guy.

Woo had a great user supported forum that they closed down. Why would you close down a resource that people loved and was helpful to so many? It makes no sense.

If I was running a Woo type business and was concerned about my support costs increasing here is what I would do.

Create a user-driven forum just like Woo used to have. Then see who the most active helpers are. Make these people moderators and throw them a couple of free plugins and themes for their time. No cost involved there.

Tell users that the fastest way to get support is get help on the forums. Encourage that all over the place. But, tell them if you really need more help we will give you a support ticket and take care of you. With a system in place like that you will significantly decrease the amount of paid support you need because many will get help from other users at no cost to you.

Why do some people believe that the first line of support should be a paid person doing one-on-one support for every issue, no matter how small and trivial? That's very inefficient and very expensive.

If there are people who abuse support all you do is create a limit for how many tickets you can submit in a month. Problem solved.