I helped several friends and acquaintances get their accounts back when I worked for Meta. Befriending an employee is still the best way to get traction.

[I no longer work there and do not speak for the company.]

Not a single one of those friends or acquaintances used two-factor authentication or other safety features, nor did they follow basic best-practices for keeping any online account secure.

A user != a customer. I can tell without exaggeration that almost every adult on this planet with access to the Internet has a Meta account. That's well over 4 billion people. Each of those users brings in a minuscule amount of revenue by viewing ads. In exchange for the pittance, Meta gives them tools to socialize, communicate, be entertained, market their businesses, etc. that are clearly worth many thousands of dollars to some users.

Of course they want to keep users happy and recover stolen or lost accounts (who wouldn't?), but with so many, it's impossible to help more than a tiny fraction of them. Verifying identity and matching it to account is especially difficult and time-consuming. To do it for free for everyone would be suicidal. They'd have to hire 10,000+ more people just for that with close to zero ROI. The simple fact is that Meta's users value Meta more than the value those users give Meta in return, so it's not worth it.

Apart from two-factor, premium supported accounts seem like the right solution here for regular users to balance the value trade.