None of this is new. Adam Smith noticed most of it, and then the profession spent two centuries forgetting. There is a version of this essay that ends with a policy prescription. This is not that version; the mechanism is interesting enough on its own. The lesson is modest. Build for the person who exists, not the one in the model. The textbook treats boredom as a preference to be revealed. In practice it is a story we tell ourselves after the fact.
A better question
Nobody sets out to be governed by the free sample, yet it shapes an astonishing share of the ordinary day. There is a version of this essay that ends with a policy prescription. This is not that version; the mechanism is interesting enough on its own. In the studies we have, the effect is modest, reliable and almost entirely ignored by the people it describes. A better account of boredom would begin with the ordinary case rather than the laboratory one.
