The remedy is rarely exhortation. It is a change to the situation so that the easier choice is also the better one. Notice how rarely anyone is argued out of the sunk cost, and how often they are simply moved past it by a change in circumstance. If you want to see effort at work, watch a queue form where there is no reason for one. What looks like effort from the outside is usually something simpler from the inside: tiredness, a deadline, a wish not to look foolish.
Three kinds of mistake
The evidence here is thinner than the confident commentary suggests, and the honest position is a shrug with a direction of travel. The honest conclusion is uncomfortable for reformers: people are not waiting to be corrected. Economists have spent decades modelling effort as a quantity. It behaves more like a weather system. A pattern this consistent is not a character flaw. It is a design feature, and design features can be worked with.
