I don't think it has much to do with consumerism, but rather how your perceptions shape your expectations. If it is 'difficult', we expect it to require a relatively increased amount of effort (see: time) to complete. This is only heightened when the task is something we are unfamiliar with, and have no idea how it should work.

For example, encryption - I, and apparently the people in the above example, have little or no understanding about how it works at a fundamental level. So if I was having something encrypted I would expect, due to ignorance and having it's difficulty on a pedestal, that it would take a reasonable amount of time to complete - certainly not instantaneous.