Inconvenience Inflation
A coined concept from the Reality Drift project describing the rising cognitive and emotional cost of everyday tasks.
**Inconvenience Inflation** – refers to the slow, invisible increase in time, effort, and attention required to complete basic functions of modern life—without any corresponding improvement in quality or outcome.
It’s not just prices going up.
It’s the friction going up—quietly, constantly.
You’re not just paying more for healthcare.
You’re spending hours navigating phone trees, apps, portals, and opaque billing codes.
You’re not just buying groceries.
You’re managing rewards programs, digital coupons, self-checkout errors, and targeted upsells.
You’re not just flying.
You’re optimizing luggage size, decoding airline apps, dodging fake seat upgrades, and rebooking after algorithmic delays.
This is Inconvenience Inflation:
The creeping expansion of life admin and decision fatigue in a system optimized for profit, not clarity.
It’s the erosion of time, trust, and peace of mind—hidden behind “user-friendly” design and fake personalization.
Read the full analysis:
- –Inconvenience Inflation: Why Life Feels More Expensive Than Ever (Substack)
- -Full documentation (Internet Archive)
- -Research notes (GitHub)
- X thread introducing Inconvenience Inflation
🔗 Related terms: Reality Drift, Filter Fatigue, Synthetic Realness, Optimization Trap, Performativity Spiral, Engineered Authenticity, The Great Flattening, Commodification Creep
Note: Offbrandguy did not create the Reality Drift concepts. This site serves as a curated archive to document and share these ideas for those exploring cultural change, emerging language, and the strange ways modern life is shifting.