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I've got a different theory. Tradespeople prioritize based on how much a job pays. So if you haggle them down, make them deal with insurance, or your type of job doesn't command much money, they'll happily keep you in their queue as an option in case work dries up, but won't be interested in doing your job as long as they're getting paid more for doing other jobs.

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Which is entirely reasonable, no? They have every right to maximise how much they can earn in their available working time, they don't owe anything to anyone else.

That's logical as an argument, but I think it explains too much — why wouldn't tradespeople have been doing this before the pandemic? What was the counterveiling force to priority-queuing?

I'm sure it has always existed, but has seemingly gotten much worse. I'd say the general boom in demand plus the continual upwards price marches of trumpflation have made the dynamic much stronger.

There's also a general feeling that the pandemic "changed things". I can't quite put my finger on the whole extent of that, but I can definitely see the overall feeling of everyone being out for themselves contributing to shamelessly playing the BATNA.

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