"Being paid for patience" — the framework I use to tell time arbitrage from value traps

A comment I made here yesterday about Google being a "paid for patience" setup got a bunch of replies asking the same question: how do you tell the difference between a stock that pays you for patience and a value trap that just feels like one? Both look identical on the surface, down big, cheap multiple, everyone scared. Figured the answer deserved its own post. The core question I ask: can I name exactly why the sellers are selling, and does that reason have an expiry date that has nothing to do with the business itself? Meta 2022 is the cleanest example. It fell to $88 because of a capex panic and reality labs burning money. The ads machine underneath was intact the whole time. The selling reason (spend fear) had a timer on it, either the spend pays off or they dial it back, and either resolution repriced the stock. Patience got paid 5x. Compare that to something like Charter today, where the selling reason is subscribers leaving for fixed wireless every quarter. No expiry date, no timer, just a trend. That's not patience being tested, that's a thesis being disproven in slow motion. Three filters that do most of the work for me: Why is it cheap, specifically. If you can't articulate the seller's logic in one sentence, you don't know if it expires. "It's down and the PE is low" is not an answer. Is the reason temporary or structural. Spend cycles, one muddy quarter, forced selling, index exclusion, all temporary. Customers leaving, technology being routed around, permanent margin compression, all structural. The chart looks the same. The outcome doesn't. Is the core business compounding while you wait. A great business with a scary 12 months rewards waiting. A shrinking business at any multiple just gets cheaper. Kodak was "cheap" for 20 straight years. The uncomfortable part is that this edge exists precisely because funds can't use it. A PM who buys a muddy-looking compounder and sits through 4 bad quarters gets fired before the thesis resolves. Retail doesn't report quarterly to anyone. It's basically the only structural advantage we have, and most people burn it by checking the app daily and selling the first 15% drawdown. Curious what names people think are in the "paid for patience" bucket right now vs what's secretly a trap. And what filters I'm missing.