I'll never understand the people who stand in line for an hour for "Free donut day" or something similar. You really value a $1.50 donut equal to an hour of your time?

If I had to make a guess, it is for the same reason that people will pay more for free shipping: they simply aren't doing the math. Of course, there could also be other reasons, things like people valuing their free time differently. Just because your employer is willing to pay $N/hour doesn't mean you are losing $N by waiting in line for an hour.

Standing in line for an event is fun, even if it's a silly promotional event. You get to laugh and chitchat with the other people in line, and it's something different to do that doesn't require much effort. But also, those lines usually balance out relative to the value of the item, if it takes too long people start realizing it's not worth it and leave.

I had some coworkers who would always find these things and go to them during the day. It was a little outing for their team while they stood in line and talked. No harm in doing something like that from time to time, but I did think it was funny that they wouldn't just put it on the calendar and spend a couple bucks on going to a coffee shop instead.

I wake up every morning in a bed that’s too small, drive my daughter to a school that’s too expensive, and then I go to work to a job for which I get paid too little. But on Pretzel Day… well, I like Pretzel Day

Don't think that's how most people see it. The worth of "an hour of your time" is basically 0 no matter who you are. If you're doing something specific (like working) then that hour of your time has value which is preset by your employer.

But that doesn't extend into all hours of your life. Your employer will not pay your hourly rate for your personal hours just to live.

You can of course then say "oh but I value my time," but value is subjective while the dollar amount isn't. If you truly believe that, then you also believe that people's personal time has different worth based on how much they're paid, which is a fundamentally wrong way to look at the world imo.

Try thinking of it as if the options are watching TikTok for an hour vs watching TikTok for an hour in a line, plus you get a free donut. Standing in the line doesn't cause the person to miss out anything.