Annoyance costs – The daily blog of behavioral and cognitive economics

The Cost of the Annoyances in Our Lives

I’ve stopped using CVS as my pharmacy because of the hassle of getting a human on the phone. Now, researchers have calculated that our hassles cost the economy billions of dollars. You know what I mean. Whether it’s CVS, a subscription cancellation, or scheduling a check-up, we waste massive time, energy, and money talking to chatbots, explaining problems to AI agents, and filling out forms. Instead, talking to a human would make it so much faster and easier. Sometimes regulations are the reason. In other instances, business save money with less labor and make more money when we cannot easily cancel a subscription. Meanwhile, generic documents and technology depersonalize. They block real communication. ….[READ]