The mind that evolved for small groups and immediate dangers is now asked to manage a pension. It does its best. The strange thing about the loyalty card is not that it exists but that it works, most of the time, for most people. A pattern this consistent is not a character flaw. It is a design feature, and design features can be worked with. The point is not that people are foolish. The point is that patience is expensive, and we economise on it like everything else.
A better question
Economists have spent decades modelling patience as a quantity. It behaves more like a weather system. The evidence here is thinner than the confident commentary suggests, and the honest position is a shrug with a direction of travel. What looks like patience from the outside is usually something simpler from the inside: tiredness, a deadline, a wish not to look foolish. Understanding people turns out to be a more urgent task than changing them, and a great deal harder.
Understanding people turns out to be a more urgent task than changing them, and a great deal harder. The strange thing about the loyalty card is not that it exists but that it works, most of the time, for most people. Put a number on patience and it becomes a target; put a target on it and the number stops meaning what it meant. None of this is new. Adam Smith noticed most of it, and then the profession spent two centuries forgetting.
