It isn't totally irrational, it's merely measuring the only metric we can measure objectively, in the usual way it's measured. The fact the measurement function

It isn't totally irrational, it's merely measuring the only metric we can measure objectively, in the usual way it's measured. The fact the measurement function is exactly backwards is not obvious; in fact, it's entirely reasonable to expect to pay more for taking up more of someone's time. Locks are actually a very good (pathologically good?) example of this, because we usually have no idea how well and how often they succeeded and a single failure can be catastrophic. Therefore, it's very hard to tell how good of a job the locksmith who installed or fixed it did without being a locksmith yourself. Compare cars: With a car, you drive it around pretty often, and you get a feel for how it handles and smells and sounds relative to the baseline established when you first got it. There's a constant evaluation of factors relevant to how the car is actually doing. With a lock, if the lock is put in well and functioning properly, the successful evaluations are mostly unnoticed unless you have a camera watching the lock 24/7.