In a very significant way, this is not true. Everyone is paying with their time and losing it irreparably to a wasteful process, yes, but the quality of that time varies enormously with how much you spend. On the low end, you're sitting in an old car with significant road noise, a mushy clutch on your manual transmission, crappy speakers to listen to your podcasts via cassette adapter. weak/no air conditioning, windows that let most of the light through, and you're sitting low because your cheap 1990s car wasn't built for highway warfare. At the other end of the spectrum, you're sitting on an air-conditioned leather seat in a brand-new electric SUV with tint so dark that for some reason it is only legal in SUVs, taking calls with a good microphone array and excellent speakers; you're also sitting high up in a vehicle equipped for modern highway warfare, but you barely even notice because your car's radar/lidar is doing most of the spacing and lane-keeping for you anyway.

So, yes, everyone's sitting around waiting, but it's the difference between sitting at home in your living room and sitting in the DMV.