XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.misc   
   From: democrat@ruined.california   
      
   Your time, money, and patience might be valuable to you, but they mean   
   so much more to the company’s bottom line.   
      
   A new study by the Groundwork Collaborative reveals that Americans are   
   dealing with longer customer service wait times, paying billions in junk   
   fees, and losing even more to healthcare hassles, setting the stage for   
   what the group dubs the “annoyance economy.”   
      
   Junk fees for concerts, hotels, and food deliveries are costing   
   Americans over $90 billion a year, the study found. By assigning a   
   dollar cost to studies estimating the hours consumers spend on hold,   
   researchers found Americans cough up over $21.6 billion in wasted time   
   due to healthcare administrative hassles.   
      
   Companies are also getting a premium for your time. The time Americans   
   spend on the phone with customer service has spiked by 60% over the last   
   20 years as companies pare back on customer service and make processes   
   like getting a refund more difficult in the name of driving revenue.   
      
   These bogus fees and frustrating ordeals are part of the “vibes-based”   
   tax companies are charging Americans to make every consumer interaction   
   harder. Companies are relying on the lack of competition and onerous   
   cancellation polices to trap consumers into services.   
      
   “We became very interested in how specifically a tax on time translates   
   into both dollars and cents,” said Alex Jacquez, Groundwork   
   Collaborative’s Chief of Policy and Advocacy. Jacquez said the report   
   shows a “vibes-based analysis of the economy” in which “every consumer   
   interaction is just harder than it used to be.”   
      
   Using existing studies to measure how much time consumers spend on   
   frustrating tasks like staying on customer service or trying to cancel a   
   subscription, researchers converted those times into dollars and cents.   
   Calculating both direct financial losses and the monetary value of   
   wasted time, researchers found Americans fork over $165 billion annually   
   in the “annoyance economy.”   
      
   Wasting your time and money   
   Corporations are intentionally turning simple tasks into lengthy   
   procedures to extract more profit, most obviously by renting services   
   rather than outright ownership.   
      
   “One thing we want to talk more about is how the economy is becoming   
   increasingly subscriptionalized,” Jacquez told Fortune. Driving a car   
   means “you’re paying monthly to be able to unlock the full features of   
   your car. It just feels like they’re trying to shift you into models   
   that are guaranteed revenue streams, rather than just kind of buying and   
   owning things.”   
      
   Making these subscriptions difficult to cancel can boost corporate   
   revenue by more than 200%, the report found.   
      
   https://fortune.com/2026/02/19/americans-paying-over-165-billion   
   annually-vibes-based-taxes-annoyance-economy/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)