And that, comrades, is yet another way to realize our economy's incentive system is misaligned with people's material needs.
This stifles development of things that are actually useful. It puts money and influence in the hands of people who shouldn't have either, creating bad incentives in the market and within the company. It gives marketing a gloss of false legitimacy, allowing for all the things that have us in a feverish race to the bottom.
Everything you just touted has been achieved despite the Idiocracy fan-fic that seems to be the current mission statement of corporate America.
In the webapp ecosystem, those transaction costs take the form of annoying signup pages and mail spam. Could be worse.