Walk into any Starbucks and someone will probably be paying $4.95 for a cup of hot water with a tea bag floating in it. They won't question it. They won’t even flinch.

Offer that same person a box of 20 premium tea bags for $99 in the grocery store, and they’ll act like you just tried to mug them in broad daylight.

Most people think of irrationality as a flaw to be fixed. Economists, psychologists, even self-help authors all conspire to beat it out of us with spreadsheets, mindfulness apps, and talks of efficiency. But here’s a thought: what if irrationality isn’t the noise, but the signal?

The greatest error in modern marketing is to assume that attention is democratic, fairly allocated, or guided by reason. It isn’t.