I have to push back on this. It's not stupidity to not realize you need another Apple device to have any reasonable chance of navigating their support channels. It's not something they go out of their way to teach you about, until you learn the hard way. Indeed it's an infuriating (IMO) dark pattern.
Don't blame yourself or others - this is on Apple!
EDIT
My personal brush with this was when my wife's phone was lost/stolen/etc and she forgot her iCloud password. Even though she had not one but two active macbooks, the fact that the credit card she'd registered with iCloud caused weeks of delay from Apple. They wouldn't budge unless we entered the original CC number, but their system rejected it due to the expiration. Madness! I'm glad that I had an internal contact - most people would have been locked out for good. These days I use a thinkpad...