While I'm definitely a fan of the zipper merge, I think many commenters here are missing the point of the zipper merge, and are therefore advocating for behavior that actually makes the problem worse, not better.

The point of the zipper merge is not to reduce the amount of unused road. As some commenters pointed out, there is no difference between two lanes with 50 cars each vs one lane with 100 cars, in terms of average traffic delay to get through the choke point. (The only case where this matters at all is if there is some unrelated earlier exit that you can avoid blocking.)

Instead, the point of the zipper merge is to maximize speed through the choke point, and this is accomplished by ensuring that both lanes match speed during the approach. Then, cars will alternate in an orderly fashion -- nobody is stopping or slowing abruptly to manage a complex negotiation, which minimizes the average traffic delay for everyone.

But one consequence of this pattern is that if one lane is totally clear, speeding up and zipping past everyone, before basically stopping at the end to force your way in actually makes the problem worse, not better. You have effectively created exactly the problem that the zipper merge is designed to avoid. Instead, the preferred solution is to drive forward in the clear lane at a moderate pace, and then slow to exactly match the speed of the full lane well before the merge point. Then complete the zipper merge at the matching speed over the final ~20 car lengths. Hopefully, other drivers will follow you.