Aubiquitous feature of even the fastest self-service technology transactions is the wait. Conventional wisdom and operations theory suggest that the longer people wait, the less satisfied they become; we demonstrate that because of what we term the labor illusion, when websites engage in...

This paper documents the effects of last place aversion in queues and its implications for customer experiences and behaviors, as well as for operating performance. An observational analysis of customers queuing at a grocery store, and four online studies in which participants waited in virtual...