Never seen this formulated as such but I really like it. I was reading a book which tangentially dealt with that [0]. It changed my perspective on how new businesses are increasingly externalizing their costs to the consumers.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Work-Unpaid-Unseen-Jobs/dp/161...
In an idealized market, costs should be passed onto the consumer. From what I can tell, the book you reference is just complaining that this cost changed from money to labor.
It is also worth noting that, in many cases, this results in a net win for the consumer. Eg, whwn I buy from a full service gas station, I am paying someone to pump my gas, and paying the to sit idle waiting for customers, and paying (in time) to wait for them to finish.
In contrast, in self service, the only cost from above I have is 1 person pumping gas (which switched from being paid with money, to being paid with labor)
E.g. a perfect market would notice the increased quality variance of goods and services and would require the price to go down proportionally so the total cost is the same. But consumers don't all see it at the same time, so every company has a chance to hoodwink every consumer by pushing additional costs onto them without their initial knowledge.
The key innovation of money is the ability to accurately evaluate the value of goods and services; by pushing all of these extra external costs onto the consumer we're basically going back to bartering.
Every additional variable that the consumer is required to consider during a purchase decision is additional cognitive load. That's why people pay so much for free/fixed shipping costs: it reduces the number of variables you have to keep in your head by 1. It's also why I think that adding tax after the listed price (like the US does it) is terrible: it puts more cognitive load on the consumer. Consumers today are attacked with dozens of potential hidden external costs around every corner, it's like a DOS attack on the consumer's brain and inhibits their decision making ability.
--Upton Sinclair
Welcome to The Jungle, baby.
I also have never head it put quite this way, and realize how true it is. One example is American Football stadiums. Get the people to pay for it and charge them to go there.
If it's a private entity capturing the state's revenues, that's anything but social. It's the opposite. It should be called what it is: lemon corporatism.
And it's sadly nothing new.