One example from my employment history was a customer that kept asking for (and unfortunately getting) one special reporting feature after another in a data processing system.

After a couple of years and several such reporting options someone asked, "Can't we just generate a spreadsheet and then your business analysts can do whatever reports they want from that?" and the customer responded, "You can do that?! That would be so much easier for us."

Imagine the weeks or even months of human life (both implementing but also using the less efficient reports) that could have been saved if the right solution had been implemented from the start.

That's literally time taken out of someone's life that they could have used to be with family or whatever they wanted instead of transcribing ridiculous reports.

(Of course, those reports were probably only generated to be looked at once in some recurring management meeting, only for the executives to feel good about having seen data. I don't think the reports were ever used to support any decision.

This means the entire reporting theatre was completely bullshit and the customer could have paid the business analysts to sip drinks on the beach instead with no loss of productivity. But that's just my cynical view.)