In August we passed 700 blog posts, and many address ideas of behavioral economics, tendencies (née biases), and decision making. Yet for all those published pixels, issues still creep into my life like a palmetto bug in the kitchen.
On a dog walk with a neighbor, I mentioned an overnight trip to the beach which cost $200 for the hotel. We both agreed it was a good value for the time of year, location, and quality of the building.
However, put a beach trip through the JTBD machine and the opportunity cost neglect shines through.
Briefly reviewed: Opportunity cost neglect is the idea that people are terrible at coming up with alternatives for options they select. For example, when students were asked if they would buy an expensive iPod or a cheaper one, they chose the expensive one. However, once the researcher reminded them they could buy the cheaper version and spend the savings on music for said iPod, the students mostly switched their choice. If it’s not apparent, we don’t consider it.
Our $200 hotel room was like four two-day theme park tickets. In Florida that is a bargain price. It’s also about the cost of one day of crafting, which we did the previous weekend. It’s more than renting Mulan on Disney+, which at $35 seems expensive however a family of four costs twice that (with snacks) at the actual theater.
All these were recent reminders of how much context affects perceived value. 
While I felt like Homer Simpson (D’oh!), it is fun to see these ideas in the wild. It was a path of JTBD I hadn’t looked at before and like a mental nudge, a good reminder to look for ways opportunity cost lives in our lives.
Opportunity cost neglect also matters with time. It’s not until we highlight what we could have spent time on that we see the true cost. That’s why these pay-what-you-want features are short. The goal is to scream up the sigmoid curve of ideas.
The Waiter's Pad 
[…] lot of decisions are like this. Opportunity costs are hard to […]
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