I like short sentences. I like articles that give you a clue what the gist is, somewhere in the first paragraph. Of course, multiple paras is good; provided the paras themselves are good.

This bloviation is from the second para:

<quote> Note that I’m not talking about the intrinsic difficulty or inconvenience of the process itself (car registration might entail waiting around for several hours in the DMV office or it might be 30 seconds online with a web page, for example), but the cost imposed by the mere existence of the need to report information or get permission or put things in some particular way just so or align or coordinate with some other thing (and the concomitant need to know that you are supposed to do whatever it is, and the need to know or find out how). </quote>

That single sentence(!) is simply unkind to the reader.

(Hmm - looks like I don't know how to do a blockquote)