The World Is (Still) Drowning in Sludge

Insurance forms that make no sense. Subscriptions that can’t be cancelled. A never-ending blizzard of automated notifications. In this update of a 2025 episode, Stephen Dubner discovers where all this sludge comes from — and how much it’s costing us.

• SOURCES:

• Benjamin Handel, (benjaminhandel.com) professor of economics at UC Berkeley.

• Neale Mahoney, (nmahoney.people.stanford.edu) professor of economics at Stanford University.

• Richard Thaler, (faculty.chicagobooth.edu/richard-thaler) professor of economics at The University of Chicago.

• RESOURCES:

• "Selling Subscriptions, (nmahoney.people.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbi…)" by Liran Einav, Ben Klopack, and Neale Mahoney (Stanford University, 2023).

• "The ‘Enshittification’ of TikTok, (wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow)" by Cory Doctorow (WIRED, 2023).

• "Dominated Options in Health Insurance Plans, (aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20190312)" by Chenyuan Liu and Justin Sydnor (American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2022).

• Nudge: The Final Edition (amzn.to/4iIjWDN), by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein (2021).

• "Frictions or Mental Gaps: What’s Behind the Information We (Don’t) Use and When Do We Care? (eml.berkeley.edu/~bhandel/wp/JEP_Frictions.pdf)" by Benjamin Handel and Joshua Schwartzstein (Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2018).

• "Adverse Selection and Switching Costs in Health Insurance Markets: When Nudging Hurts, (nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w17459/w1…)" by Benjamin Handel (National Bureau of Economic Research, 2011).

• EXTRAS:

• "Sludge (freakonomics.com/podcast-tag/sludge)," series by Freakonomics Radio (2025).

• "People Aren’t Dumb. The World Is Hard. (Update) (freakonomics.com/podcast/people-arent-dumb-the…)" by Freakonomics Radio (2024).

• "All You Need is Nudge, (freakonomics.com/podcast/all-you-need-is-nudge)" by Freakonomics Radio (2021).

• "How to Fix the Hot Mess of U.S. Healthcare, (freakonomics.com/podcast/how-to-fix-the-hot-me…)" by Freakonomics Radio (2021).

• "Should We Really Behave Like Economists Say We Do? (freakonomics.com/podcast/should-we-really-beha…)" by Freakonomics Radio (2015).

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