Ask HN: How long is too long when waiting in line before leaving? - jger15
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shoo
Needs far more context.

I queued up buy lunch for about 5 seconds until walking away after I'd
considered the length of the line and the fact that there's another lunch
place I like that's often not as busy 100m away.

I've queued for many hours to catch a delayed plane flight.

Conceivably you could get me to queue for months or a year with a big enough
carrot ("for some crazy reason we're giving away pretty nice houses to anyone
who queues for them")

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CM30
Depends what you're waiting for. Personally I'd say about 15-20 minutes is the
max for something you can easily get elswhere (like food or many consumer
items), 30-40 minutes would be a good maximum for methods of transport
wherever there are alternative routes available, and you should only wait
indefinitely if you're 100% certain whatever you're waiting for is only
available at that location on that day/at that time.

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jimmyvalmer
there's a whole discipline devoted to this subject, aptly named "queuing
theory."

personally, i always wait because I feel more regret if I later find out the
line accelerated than I do self-satisfaction if I find out the line barely
budged.

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sturza
what about "cutting your losses"?

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jimmyvalmer
What about it?

Reduce the problem down to: "how much longer should I wait to move up the line
one place?" If that time interval follows an exponential distribution, then no
amount of time elapsed will help you make that decision.

~~~
jimmyvalmer
Sunk cost fallacy. Look it up.

Your future value of waiting does not change with time.

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sp332
If you don't need the thing, why are you waiting in line to begin with? If you
don't have anything better to do... wait.

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Spooky23
If it’s open ended, 15m.

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dlphn___xyz
how valuable is your time?

