In both situations, it's not like you're adding a commodity product to your Amazon shopping card. The matching is non-trivial and both parties have to recognize and commit to the effort-full process.
To abstract your comment all the way out - how many people live well below their potential because they are too lazy or afraid to work and get something they really way?
If dates were conducted like coding interviews — assuming the candidate is a liar and forcing them to prove in detail why they're not — you'd never get a second date. A job is supposed to be a voluntary, mutually advantageous relationship between two parties. So interviews ought to be kind of like dating, where you're trying to be as nice as possible and make a good impression. You don't give tests to a date, you just talk to them, get to know them.
Employers too often assume that interviews are a one-way street, where the candidate wants the job no matter what and will do anything to get it. On the contrary, the candidate can walk away at any time, and the employer needs to woo the candidate just as much as the candidate needs to woo the employer.
I guess I am lucky but I never had (or gave) an interview of the former, so it DID feel like this: "On the contrary, the candidate can walk away at any time, and the employer needs to woo the candidate just as much as the candidate needs to woo the employer."
Hence my comment. It sounds like you've interviewed at some shitty places or maybe underappreciated how much power you actually have.
Walk into a first date confident but polite and full of charm and you'll have a good time. Same with job interviews, even the technical ones.
So much of getting a job is a firm handshake and speaking loud and clear.
Surely its the person who gets married and doesn't have to deal with that any more. Its a good reason to stay in a company a long time, like the OP says.