121–130 of 160 posts
I just got back from a week-long vacation where I flew Southwest. It was my first Southwest flight in a while and I will now not fly any other airlines. The rise of "basic economy" seems a lot like the general phenomena of "enshitification" and has a similar motive - degrade your product to squeeze the last drop out of the consumer. And it seems logical that charging by the "degree of shit" in a product means every l…
This always happens when growth of a good or service slows but the provider is still expected to keep delivering growth. Historically it has led to finding efficiencies - but that takes R&D, not just financial engineering. In the near future humanity will to do a mix of three things: a) accept that growth is over (it’s not, this is temporary until the next thing is invented), b) find a way to return to the frenzy of…
Very unpopular opinion, but I personally find price discrimination somewhat appealing. Both me and the richest person on the plane get to the same destination at the same time. And yet he payed 4x as much for the same privilege. It's one of the few forces left in the economy that actually reduces inequality (somewhat). I'm an absolute cheapskate and I love flying, so I never really fall for the need to upsell. I'll f…
It's more the reverse, wherein the service provider discriminates to charging people different amounts for the exact same good/service (not just different quality goods/services). IMO, this is more likely what people have a problem with.
Very unpopular opinion, but I personally find price discrimination somewhat appealing. Both me and the richest person on the plane get to the same destination at the same time. And yet he payed 4x as much for the same privilege. It's one of the few forces left in the economy that actually reduces inequality (somewhat). I'm an absolute cheapskate and I love flying, so I never really fall for the need to upsell. I'll f…
Most people could afford to pay more for airline tickets. It’s just that they’ve done the math and they don’t want to.
I plan carefully and don’t have to rebook my flights. I pack my own food. I leave behind that second pair of shoes so that I only bring a carry on.
I’d rather do all of this so that I have an extra $100 to spend on a nice meal or experience at my destination.
If any of those things are important to you, then you can have them! You just have to pay for them.
I don’t see why the government needs to mandate that airlines provide certain services like checked bags (which would require increasing minimum ticket prices). Why not use price signals to allow each individual to tailor the experience for themselves?
I feel like everyone leaves out that last part. Everyone wants extras when you don’t have to pay for them. Are the people arguing for more regulation mentioning the tidbit that ticket prices will go up?
I know this is veering into the political, but I just don’t understand the ideology that most people seem to have. Which is that we need to use the power of the government to force people to buy things they don’t want.
It appears that taking advantage of human imperfections and irrationality are taking up more and more of companies' strategies and time. You've got folks thinking constantly about advertising, pricing strategies, dark patterns, network effects that prevent or discourage churn, etc., in ways that tend to exploit flaws in the consumer's decisioning process or gaps in their knowledge, to the consumer's disadvantage. It…
You can find people back in 1880 (probably before, but that is as old as I've seen something) saying much the same thing. Yet we have had a lot of innovation since then.
Very unpopular opinion, but I personally find price discrimination somewhat appealing. Both me and the richest person on the plane get to the same destination at the same time. And yet he payed 4x as much for the same privilege. It's one of the few forces left in the economy that actually reduces inequality (somewhat). I'm an absolute cheapskate and I love flying, so I never really fall for the need to upsell. I'll f…
That rich guy in your example probably values price discrimination just as much as you do, because he - presumably not being a cheapskate - can just pay more and know that all the conveniences he wants will be there for him. And then he goes back to thinking about his next genius business plan, because it's not worth his time looking for the best bargain. So both win.
The reverence that people has for rich people astonishes me. Rich people is just average people with money. Actually, they are probably worse at their jobs because they need less effort to earn money.
Rich people are not rich because they are "genius" but because they game the system.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Broadly agree, with the one caveat that private-equity-owned businesses seem to be even worse than public companies in this regard.
I agree, although there’s a lot of selection bias at work here: companies usually don’t get bought by private equity unless they’re already in distress, so whatever they were doing before the acquisition clearly wasn’t working.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> All of the fat in the industry has been squeezed out I don't know where you live but in the US this is patently not true. Airlines are an abusive oligopoly there, with landing slots and the like cementing control of certain markets for certain airlines. Ticket prices are much higher than they used to be and are much higher than Europe (for instance).
Airfare in the US costs less today than it did in the 90s, adjusted for inflation: https://www.bts.gov/newsroom/2024-annual-average-domestic-ai...
Average fares are skewed by low cost carriers entering the market.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> All of the fat in the industry has been squeezed out I don't know where you live but in the US this is patently not true. Airlines are an abusive oligopoly there, with landing slots and the like cementing control of certain markets for certain airlines. Ticket prices are much higher than they used to be and are much higher than Europe (for instance).
The airline industry is famously unprofitable; it is commonly said that on net, the sum total of airlines have made $0 over the course of their history. It is true that there are periods where they do make a profit, but these periods are offset by times when they make massive losses (such as during COVID, after the Great Recession, and after 9/11).
https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/most-profitable-airlines
I think there are lots of airlines that are propped up by governments that lose money leading to the meme you're quoting. Many industries were affected by the events you quoted, those sorts of things aren't specific to airlines.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd rather go back to only being able to fly once every few years as opposed to the bacchanal that is Ryanair...
Ryanair has been very successful with their PR. They've made sure that people who don't fit their customer profile will have an irrational hate for the airline without ever having flew them. And that people who are looking for the biggest bargains flock to them. And the price difference is just ridiculous.