Who’s Got Time for That? The Strange Economics of Line-Sitting

This Week’s Focus: The Dynamics of Paid Queueing

Today we look at the evolving market of queue management, a key factor in customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. With the growing trend of hiring someone to stand in line for you, this practice presents a mix of convenience and controversy. While some view this as a fair exchange—trading money for time—others criticize it as a sign of deepening social inequality. Through the comparison of line-standing with other queue management methods like dynamic pricing and digital reservations, we examine the economic, operational, and ethical implications of this unusual yet innovative market. Could this service improve efficiency, or will it only serve to widen societal divides?

Few things fascinate me more than queues—I mean, from a theoretical standpoint.

As scholars of queueing theory, we marvel at the elegant mathematics behind lines: their rhythms, their behaviors, and their subtle impact on efficiency. We like to see how people make decisions and how they respond to different queues and information on delays.

But let’s be clear: no one actually enjoys waiting in lines.

In fact, studying queues doesn’t make me immune to standing in line, and while I don’t enjoy it, it never (ever) occurred to me to pay someone else to stand for me.

Interestingly, outsourcing patience has become a booming market. The Wall Street Journal recently featured an article on services like Taskrabbit (see below) and Same Ole Line Dudes that now thrive by offering to endure the boredom on behalf of busy professionals, determined foodies, and devoted sneakerheads. For approximately $27 an hour, they’ll patiently secure your place at a hotspot, allowing you to enjoy life elsewhere.

Yet this practice raises intriguing economic and ethical questions. Critics see queue-buying as a troubling sign of inequality, turning democratic waiting into a pay-to-play privilege. Proponents, on the other hand, view it as a logical solution: why shouldn’t those who value time more pay those who value money more, to wait for them?

Today’s article explores the economics, operational impact, and ethical considerations of hiring someone to wait in line, while examining whether this quirky market innovation will improve efficiency or simply deepen divisions.

Let’s take our place in line and unpack the implications.

Economic Rationale: Queueing Theory and Time Arbitrage

Hiring line-standers creates a secondary market for waiting time, exploiting how people value their time differently. In queueing terms, lines represent an implicit cost of waiting for scarce services. Firms often hesitate to openly raise prices to manage long queues due to practical or ethical concerns. Line-standing services fill this efficiency gap by enabling those with high time-value to pay someone with lower time-value to wait—essentially converting waiting costs into monetary costs. This practice is essentially a form of time arbitrage.

Operationally, this acts as a market-driven priority system without the service provider directly altering queue order. Classic queue-management methods, like priority fees, similarly match demand with price but do so centrally. In contrast, line-standing decentralizes priority, keeping FIFO order physically intact but economically allowing wealthier customers to buy shorter waits indirectly.

While it may sound counterintuitive at first, line-standing can expand overall demand. Customers who typically avoid queues due to high waiting costs might join if they can outsource the wait. Unlike formal priority systems, which primarily redistribute existing demand, line-standing can grow the market by turning hesitant customers into active consumers, creating a viable market for line-sitting.

Professional line-sitters in New York (such as Same Ole Line Dudes) charge on the order of $25–$30 per hour, often with a minimum block (e.g., $45 for the first two hours). These rates frequently rise under extreme conditions (a form of surge pricing), reflecting relatively inelastic demand when stakes are high—people will pay extra to avoid waiting in frigid cold, pouring rain, or overnight.

Anecdotal cases illustrate the value of time in dollar terms: one professional line-sitter earned $325 for waiting 19 hours overnight for an iPhone release, implying the client was willing to pay roughly $17 per hour to avoid camping out. Similarly, customers surveyed outside a famous pizzeria indicated they would pay an extra $7–$20 to cut a 40-minute wait for a slice, revealing a range of price elasticity—some balked at $25, while others saw even $20 as worthwhile for immediate service.

These figures suggest that a nontrivial segment of consumers have a high willingness-to-pay to save time. However, as prices rise toward their own hourly worth of time, demand drops, indicating a typical downward-sloping curve for time-saving services. Overall, the existence of thriving line-standing businesses and gig platforms (TaskRabbit reports line-waiting gigs averaging ~$27/hour) demonstrates robust empirical demand for queue-skipping via proxies.

Are Customers Better Off?

The impact of line-standing on consumer surplus (the net benefit consumers receive) has been studied in academic literature.

Cui, Wang, and Yang (2020) developed a queueing-game model to analyze line-sitting versus direct priority sales. They found that when a service provider introduces a paid priority option, it primarily extracts consumer surplus—essentially transferring welfare from customers to the firm via price discrimination. By charging impatient customers more, the firm captures value at customers’ expense, often leaving the customer population worse off in aggregate.

In contrast, line-sitting can, under many conditions, be a win-win: it generates extra revenue for the provider and can leave customers collectively better off. The win-win arises because line-sitting’s demand-expansion means customers who would get zero utility (by not using the service at all) are now served and gain positive utility, while existing customers still have the option to wait. However, this positive outcome isn’t guaranteed; the same study cautions that if too many new customers join, the negative congestion externality (longer queues for everyone) can erode the benefits.

In other words, when line-standers make service accessible to more people, the added waiting time imposed on all queue members can partially or fully offset the newcomers’ contribution to total customer welfare. Thus, moderate use of line-standing might increase total consumer surplus, but heavy use could lead to overcrowding, which harms the experience for all customers.

A related sibling of line-sitting is queue-scalping—a phenomenon where speculators join a queue not to consume, but purely to sell their spot. A recent model of queue-scalping developed by Yang, Wang, and Cui (2021) (same authors, different order) provides further interesting insights. In the short run (with fixed service capacity), the presence of scalpers tends to increase overall social welfare by reducing wasted time (idle capacity is used and those who value service most end up obtaining it).

However, a substantial portion of the benefit is captured by the scalpers as profit, and consumer surplus tends to decline because genuine customers must either pay scalpers or endure longer waits due to scalpers.

In one scenario, throughput (the number of customers served) might actually drop if scalpers hold spots that go unsold; in another, throughput could rise if scalpers enable otherwise absent consumers to get service. In this sense, the recent NY ban on restaurant scalping is a step in the right direction.

In the long run, if the service provider can adjust capacity (e.g., add more servers or service slots), the calculus changes. The model predicts that a welfare-maximizing provider will expand capacity in response to scalping whenever the original capacity was tight, eventually serving more customers. With higher capacity, queue-scalping can end up increasing consumer surplus in the long term by both improving service availability and preserving some benefit for consumers. Essentially, the market signals sent by scalpers (that demand outstrips supply at the current price) could induce the firm or authority to scale up supply, which benefits everyone.

Interestingly, even after capacity expansion, scalpers might not disappear—they may continue to operate if any rent (profit) is left to capture, and an expanded market can even attract more scalpers.

This dynamic implies that while hiring line-standers or allowing queue markets can improve efficiency, it may not self-correct the underlying scarcity; active management is needed to balance congestion and welfare.

Line-Standing vs. Alternative Solutions

Effective queue management is crucial to customer satisfaction and operational efficiency, so it’s interesting to compare line-standing with more common methods, such as dynamic pricing, paid priority queuing, and digital reservation systems.

Line-Standing vs. Dynamic Pricing: Imagine Uber’s surge pricing on New Year’s Eve. Dynamic pricing prevents queues by directly raising prices when demand spikes, ensuring immediate market efficiency—those who value the service most pay more. Unlike line-standing, dynamic pricing channels extra revenue directly to the provider (e.g., airlines or rideshares reinvest surge profits into expansion). However, dynamic pricing often feels like “price gouging,” sparking customer frustration. Conversely, line-standing maintains the original price tag while creating a secondary market for time—wealthier customers discreetly outsource waiting. Consider popular product launches, like limited-edition sneakers, where line-standing allows everyone a chance at retail price but also enables high-value customers to bypass the wait discreetly. Thus, line-standing offers a softer, politically safer way of rationing scarce services.

Line-Standing vs. Paid Priority Queuing: Think of Disneyland’s FastPass or airline business-class boarding. Paid priority queues offer clear, provider-controlled shortcuts, significantly boosting revenue but creating overt class distinctions. This can upset customers waiting in standard lines, causing resentment (think of how economy passengers sometimes glare at priority boarding groups). In contrast, line-standing maintains a façade of fairness—every spot is physically first-come-first-served, but wealthier customers quietly use proxies. While paid priority directly fills provider pockets, line-standing funnels money to third parties. Interestingly, the research mentioned above shows line-standing can sometimes boost overall event attendance and spending more than paid priority, because customers feel less explicitly disadvantaged (e.g., Broadway shows where unofficial line-standers encourage higher audience turnout).

Line-Standing vs. Digital Reservation Systems: Apps like OpenTable or Disney’s Virtual Queue eliminate physical waiting entirely by digitally scheduling arrivals. Picture a busy restaurant texting customers when their table is ready—no line, happier diners, smoother service. Digital systems dramatically improve customer experience by removing physical wait-time. However, reservations can create their own problems, such as tech-savvy individuals monopolizing spots online (consider bots scooping concert tickets instantly). Unlike line-standing, digital queues don’t naturally monetize waiting time—they’re typically an operational cost rather than a revenue stream unless a deposit or reservation fee is charged. Yet, digital queuing significantly enhances customer satisfaction and brand loyalty, provided it’s equitably designed and accessible.

The conclusion is that while line-standing may seem unconventional, it can surprisingly outperform traditional queue-management methods in revenue, fairness, and customer perception.

Ethical and Social Considerations: Fairness, Inequality, and Welfare

On this background, we must discuss the fact that the practice of hiring someone to wait in line sparks heated debates about fairness and equality.

On one hand, line-standing is a practical exchange between those rich in money but short on time, and those with time to spare but short on cash—a classic trade-off. For example, a busy executive hires a student or gig worker to camp overnight for concert tickets; the executive uses precious hours, and the worker earns income from otherwise idle time. Economically, this transaction reduces wasted hours spent in queues, boosting overall productivity and potentially enhancing social welfare.

However, critics highlight that line-standing deepens inequality by allowing wealthier individuals to leapfrog queues, transforming patience-based access into pay-to-play systems. Think of coveted congressional hearing seats or COVID test lines snatched up by the highest bidders, undermining principles of equal access. When Atlanta introduced express toll lanes, dubbed “Lexus lanes” it inadvertently worsened congestion for regular drivers, illustrating how prioritizing money over patience can disadvantage those less financially privileged.

This highlights a distributional concern: a change that improves efficiency or revenue can have regressive effects, placing a higher burden on lower-income or “time-rich” individuals.

Fairness and Social Norms: There’s also a psychological dimension to consider. Research by Althenayyan, Ülkü, Yang, and Cui found that people’s perception of fairness differs depending on how queue jumping is achieved. A series of controlled experiments compared reactions to encountering a paid priority customer versus a line-stander swap in a queue. Surprisingly, the results showed that customers are less dissatisfied when another customer uses a line-sitter than when someone simply buys priority from the service provider.

Even if the wait time impact is identical, the express-line scenario was deemed less fair, leading to greater resentment.

The line-standing (one-to-one swap) was perceived as a person delegating their waiting—a fair trade of time—whereas an express pass was seen as “cutting in line.” Only when line-sitting was allowed to violate the one-to-one rule (one line-sitter holding places for multiple paying customers, effectively inserting additional people ahead) did it attract equal ire.

These findings reinforce that optics and norms matter: a scheme that visibly violates FIFO can trigger moral outrage, whereas an equivalent outcome engineered through a proxy feels more acceptable because the structure of the line remains intact.

For managers and policymakers, this suggests that the way queue management policies are implemented can influence public acceptance. A paid fast lane might harm customer goodwill and trust, whereas tacitly allowing line-standers or designing a formal “stand-in concierge” service might fly under the radar of consumer resentment.

From a social welfare viewpoint, the debate around line-standing boils down to balancing efficiency gains against equity concerns. On the positive side, reallocating waiting costs to those best equipped to handle them reduces wasted time. This can boost overall societal productivity and satisfaction.

Yet, this efficiency comes with clear equity trade-offs. The benefits primarily flow to two groups: those wealthy enough to pay for convenience and those who earn money waiting. Everyone else might face even longer waits, feeling sidelined by an increasingly pay-to-play system. Policymakers aiming for fairness could consider taxing line-standing services, using proceeds to support equitable access. Alternatively, allocating a portion of services through lotteries or reserved spots can ensure those unable or unwilling to pay aren’t entirely excluded.

Ultimately, context matters: paid line-cutting feels deeply unfair when it involves essentials like healthcare or court hearings, yet it’s more acceptable (though still controversial) in leisure scenarios like concerts or amusement parks. Policymakers must weigh efficiency gains carefully against rising inequality, potentially employing measures like sliding-scale fees or alternative access routes to balance efficiency and fairness thoughtfully.

Bottom Line

No one likes waiting. However, some people hate it (and are wealthy) enough to pay for priority or to hire someone to stand in line for them.

While not as common as priority queues, line-standing occupies a unique middle ground: it reallocates waiting costs discreetly, preserves perceived fairness, and can mitigate customer backlash common with explicit priority pricing or dynamic surcharges.

As the main issues with priority queues are the optics, it is clear that digital reservation systems represent the future, significantly enhancing experience without overt inequality.

Hybrid approaches—such as limited paid priority or partial reservations combined with line-standing options—can maximize efficiency, revenue, and customer goodwill. Effective managers strategically blend these tools, capturing value without alienating customers, and balancing operational efficiency with perceived fairness.

If you still oppose line standing, think of it as outsourcing boredom—your time is valuable, but your stander’s Netflix subscription probably isn’t.