Actually, I regret the term "laziness" in the subject line. I was just dumbstruck at the time. But when we start thinking of customers as "lazy" we've already put ourselves in a place where we start thinking the world should just suck it up and learn our suddenly "broken" system. It's usually easier (and more profitable) to change the system than to hope to change the customer.
I remember a few years ago working and working on this prototype interface. I was so proud. Before unleashing it, I decided to do the most basic usability test: have my very tech-savvy wife test it. She opened the page in a browser and within 2 seconds, I realized my work of genius was fatally broken. It was that hesitation where she did nothing for 1-2 seconds (which is very long). I realized instantly that it needed a ground-up redesign.
In general, in life, auto-pilot serves us well and frees us up for other tasks. So I can, say, drive a car with it's very simple and consistent interface and let my mind wandering to various creative and problem-solving tasks. If someone switched the gas and the brake, I'd likely kill myself and others and have to concentrate to the exclusion of all else until I got used to. So I'd lose the efficiency that a consistent interface gives me.
On the home front, I moved the trash can in the kitchen from under the sink, to in a closet six months ago, but I'll be damned if I don't open the cabinet by the sink 20% of the time still. But as I say, that is not yet laziness. Laziness is when you open the cabinet under the sink, see the garbage can isn't there anymore, and throw the trash in anyway in hopes someone else will clean it up ;-) That's also a phase known as "pre-divorce".
