What people hate about wait times
11 real pain points mentioning "wait", "queue", "line". 209 upvotes total.
Every pain on PainMap that mentions "wait", "queue", "line" — 11 entries, ranked by urgency.
Topic hubs cut across PainMap horizontally. Instead of "what do people in Germany complain about" or "everything in the Health category", a topic hub asks: "what do people complain about when they mention wait times?" 11 pain points match, with 209 total upvotes.
We build the match by scanning the title and description of every submission for any of these terms: "wait", "queue", "line", "appointment". That's intentionally loose — it catches both the obvious phrasings and the adjacent ones, since people don't all describe the same frustration with the same words. The trade-off is that occasionally an entry shows up here because of incidental wording. The ranking pushes those down: low-quality, low-vote, low-urgency entries naturally drift to the bottom.
If you're researching wait times as a market: read the top 10 entries fully (not just the titles), then look at the "Where wait times pain hurts most" section further down. That tells you whether this is a universal problem or geographically concentrated — which changes the GTM story completely. A universal pain with low country concentration is a SaaS opportunity. A pain concentrated in 2-3 countries with specific institutions is often a local-services or compliance opportunity.
For founders and product people: the "willingness to pay" column on each pain card matters more than upvotes. Upvotes mean "this annoys me too". Willingness to pay means "I would actually open my wallet for a fix". The two are correlated but not the same — some of the highest-upvoted pains have very low willingness to pay (people enjoy complaining about them more than they want them solved) and some of the highest-paying pains have modest upvote counts because they only hurt a niche.
For everyone else: this is just a window into what people are quietly fed up with. No takes, no opinions, no listicle. Just the list.
🔥 Top wait times frustrations
Electrical Engineer Designer
What I was trying to do: Electrical enginering design What went wrong: Im sick of making single line diagrams of an electrical cabinets in autocad, other programs are just to expensive..I wish there would be some other free software for that. Worst part: making drawings in autocad which isn't suitable for this kind of job.
"Writing product descriptions and marketing copy is painfull
What I was trying to do: Write high-converting product descriptions, marketing posts, and landing page copy for my online sto What went wrong: I spend hours trying to turn dry, technical product specs into emotional and persuasive copy that actually sells. The result is usually flat, boring text that customers scroll past. Even when I use Ch Worst part: I lose a lot of potential sales because of weak copy, waste precious time, and feel unprofessional compared to competitors who have better tools. It s
how to sell ebook
What I was trying to do: see ebook online What went wrong: not selling Worst part: dont know where to sell, how to sell
Gambling
What I was trying to do: Trying to make quick money through online gambling after falling behind financially What went wrong: I kept chasing losses, believing the next win would recover everything, but every session pulled me deeper into debt and stress Worst part: The worst part wasn’t just losing money it was the guilt, anxiety, and feeling of losing control while watching my savings disappear
Remote work tools are a mess
Slack, Zoom, Notion, Linear, Jira, Loom, Figma — I spend half my day switching tabs and the other half in meetings about which tool to use.
Therapy waitlists are 6 months long
You finally decide to ask for help and the soonest appointment is in March. People in crisis cannot wait that long.
Banks treat you like a criminal
Move your own money and your account gets frozen. Try to call support — 45 minute wait to be told to visit a branch.
I forgot things that actually mattered
What I was trying to do: Keep track of important things in my life — deadlines, promises, tasks I actually cared about. What went wrong: I kept forgetting to check my notes or reminders. I had everything written down… but it didn’t matter if I didn’t look at it. Worst part: Forgetting things that actually mattered — missing deadlines, breaking promises, letting people down.
Airlines lose your bag and shrug
They take your money, lose your stuff, and offer a $20 voucher. There is zero accountability.
Restaurant menus hide the prices online
You want to plan dinner. You go to the website. The menu is a 2019 PDF or just photos. Why?
Government websites are from 2003
Tried to renew my ID online. The site only works in Internet Explorer. I do not own Internet Explorer.
Frequently asked
- What does PainMap track about wait times?
- Every entry on this page is a real complaint mentioning wait times, submitted by someone fed up enough to write it down. Other users upvote when they feel the same.
- Are these wait times problems verified?
- They're verified by votes, not editors. The more people who upvote, the higher the urgency score, and the more likely the pain is widespread.
- Why focus on wait times?
- wait times is one of the most-mentioned themes on PainMap. Aggregating them in one place makes it easier for founders, journalists, and curious people to see the pattern.
- How many wait times-related pains are listed?
- 11 so far, sorted by urgency. The list updates as new submissions come in.
Related categories
Where wait times pain shows up most.