Netflix watch time "cost"

One of my toxic traits is being painfully conscious of the value of time. When a meeting drags on, I’ll ask myself, “How much money was collectively lost by us all sitting here?”. I’m aware that not every moment can be optimized for peak productivity (nor should it), but still, it can be frustrating at times.

This got me thinking about how much time I willingly waste watching TV and movies. I recently started watching Season 2 of Tokyo Vice, which is quite good in my opinion. Still, in the back of my mind, I wonder if I should be more productive.

To resolve this, what if Netflix explicitly showed you how much money you stood to miss out on based on your hourly rate? More than anything, this would depress me. After a long day at work, the last thing I want is to be reminded of work, much less how much money I’m “leaving on the table”. The worst part about this is that there’s no actionable step to make money, you just have to acknowledge that you’re losing it.

All in all, I can’t advise actually building this concept as it’d likely just make people mad/sad.

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