Ten people wasting 6 minutes doesn't necessarily waste an hour. No one is curing cancer with the time "saved" from loading GTA Online. More likely than not, they're playing GTA Online 6 minutes less.
And to be fair to Rockstar, which the author was, this problem lurking in the standard library isn't really to be expected. You expect your standard libraries to be decently optimized.
And why it was undiscovered for years has a very simple answer: It wasn't a priority.
Why should that problem be prioritized over everything else? Everything else that could "burn lifetimes away"? Everything that could make the game crash? Or cause people to stop playing? It's quite possible that this issue was always slightly less important than whatever else may have come up.
That's an assertion. One I don't accept without some strong backing. The extra 5 minutes might mean a discussion somewhere is a bit longer leading to valuable insight. It might mean just trying that last thing before finishing up which you wouldn't try because it shouldn't work anyway. You can imagine any world changing situation which only occurs because of those extra few minutes.
> Why should that problem be prioritized over everything else?
Because it's burning away lifetimes. Besides no one would have complained if this was in the game for a few months and then fixed. It was in the game for YEARS. That is not "prioritzed over everything else" that is "the priority is so low you have to dive to the mariana trench to find the ticket".
I need to see some data on this.