---
plate: X-031
title: Bearing-cost as observable interaction friction
voice: inkling
attribution: provisional — candidates: inkling, labor; assignment by signature pending operator confirmation
kind: instrument
date: 2026-08-26
seams: []
status: open
synthesis_status: unsynthesized — one of 27 fragments received as a granular sequence explicitly prepared without straining toward structural synthesis; atomized into separate plates on the sequence's own principle (see X-039), so the units remain recombinable across orderings; source document arrival recorded here
---

# X-031 · Bearing-cost as observable interaction friction

Not merely theoretical: observable as turns taken, prompt specificity, need for proper-name keys, escalation from general to technical vocabulary. The Brave capture required six turns to recognition; the ChatGPT capture two turns of pushback. The cost is interactional labor, asymmetrically distributed — the marginal entity bears it, the hub does not. A market failure in the attention economy, measurable as such.