I love this quote from the linked B. Eckel article:

My theory is that when someone is trying to do something and you are constantly prodding them with annoyances, they will use the quickest device available to make those annoyances go away so they can get their thing done, perhaps assuming they'll go back and take out the device later.

I think this is very close to the 'Huffman coding' line of thinking by Lary Wall.