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Notes -
I think you forgot to actually make an argument why this is irrational. I can imagine many pretty natural scenarios where this is perfectly rational. For example, if you are working a full time job with no ability to work overtime (i.e. most jobs), and you don’t have anything all that valuable to do that you’d rather spend extra 60-90 minutes a day, but you could really use extra $2k/year. If you were planning to spend this saved time on scrolling TikTok, why not just spend it sitting in a car and put a podcast on?
It's similar to why it is rational to pay $X extra to drive somewhere where you will save less than $X on prices. In order to not incentivize behavior that harms you, you need to precommit not to give in even if not giving in harms you by more. If you incentivize enough price reduction that the increased incidence of price reduction helps you more than the loss from driving when there is no price reduction, you gain.
But it only works if you precommit; you need to become the type of person who "irrationally" will drive far to get lower prices. Once you've done this, you can't just see that they didn't lower the prices, change your mind, and go to the nearer store anyway to "save money".
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