Nick Martell

That is the annoyance economy and it works.

Unfortunately.

Yeah.

Because get this, companies that add these layers of cancellation friction and make it hard to get the thing you want on customer service, they actually see their revenues rise between 14 and 200%.

Jack, it's like the corporate equivalent of Luigi throwing bananas on the road in Mario Kart.

Luigi's probably going to win the race and so is the company.

Throwing that friction at your customers.

Besties, Jack and I are fans of innovation, but we hate this annoyance innovation as much as you do.

And get this, on the same day that the New York Times covered the quote unquote annoyance economy, the Wall Street Journal covered the surge in surcharges.

That's right.

Last week, every major US airline increased their baggage fees to cover the higher fuel.

And the baggage fee is a sneaky fee.

because you don't see it until the end of your transaction.

So the airlines ain't using the term fee anymore because it's got some ironic baggage.

Instead, they use surcharge.

And why is that, Jack?

Well, surcharge, like surname, is the fee that comes at the very end.

Besties, this all started as a temporary COVID economy trend, and it just happened to stay with us and get worse.

Businesses like surcharges because they seem to blame someone else.

A surcharge is like, this isn't my fault that I have to charge you this money.