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American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other

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Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other

#131

Post by bradly »

Nextgrid wrote: post #35

> The interest was monetization of customer eyeballs, an American Airlines source shared that they wanted customers checking accounts at AA.com where they could be marketed to. It seems like so many problems, annoyances and inconvenience in modern society are artificially created/maintained just to enable this disgusting industry. Imagine how more efficient things could be if this cancer was eradicated once and for a…

Was it Ray Bradbury that said something like the only difference between the rich and the poor in the future will be the number of ads they see?

Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other

#132

Post by dkonofalski »

ativzzz wrote: post #107
Nextgrid wrote: post #35

> The interest was monetization of customer eyeballs, an American Airlines source shared that they wanted customers checking accounts at AA.com where they could be marketed to. It seems like so many problems, annoyances and inconvenience in modern society are artificially created/maintained just to enable this disgusting industry. Imagine how more efficient things could be if this cancer was eradicated once and for a…

Is a website considered a private space (maybe not, but you agree to a TOS when you fly AA)? If so, you should have the right to say how your space is used by others, regardless of if we believe marketing is ethical or not. If AA doesn't want their data being used anywhere else, sounds like they should have the right to do that, just like we have the right to remove people from our private spaces if they do things ag…

The issue with this sentiment, in my opinion, is that users have access to this data by logging in and they've provided the app with that access by providing their credentials. Unless a court is going to go down the road of preventing users from sharing their own information, I don't see how AA can do anything about this. If you can view this info in a web browser, you can scrape it.

Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other

#133

Post by PragmaticPulp »

throwaway_b04f wrote: post #18

Years ago I (and a handful of other folks) had a meeting with some people from American who were thinking about opening up their data via an API. One of the other attendees said something to the effect of, "software developers are very, very good at removing inefficiencies when given data like this." It was delicately phrased but the subtext was clearly a warning: if your business depends on asymmetry, an API can sin…

For some perspective: This isn’t just about friendly apps like TPG helping consumers out. If you have an API (or even just turn a blind eye to scraping) and have a popular service, scores of ill-intentioned business people will descend on your business to suck any value they can out of it.

This ranges from all of those StackOverflow scraping websites in your Google search results to companies that want to scrape Facebook for images and personal info to build a database of everyone.

Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other

#134

Post by alexpotato »

Nextgrid wrote: post #35

> The interest was monetization of customer eyeballs, an American Airlines source shared that they wanted customers checking accounts at AA.com where they could be marketed to. It seems like so many problems, annoyances and inconvenience in modern society are artificially created/maintained just to enable this disgusting industry. Imagine how more efficient things could be if this cancer was eradicated once and for a…

Or at least offer an option to pay to remove the annoyances.

HBO was a great example of this in the pre-streaming days.

"Want to see great shows and movies with no commercials, pay the extra for cable + HBO and you won't have to seem them again.!"

This default, "it's all free BUT you have to see ads and there are no alternatives" seems to be the problem. The apps described in the article are effectively recognizing this consumer surplus/need and acting on it.

Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other

#135

Post by alexpotato »

arcticbull wrote: post #121
matheusmoreira wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Advertising ruins everything. Everything. They are directly and indirectly responsible for the poor state of consumer technology today. Privacy violations? Advertising. Borderline unusable websites? Advertising. Deliberately addictive social media? Advertising. Almost everything that's wrong with computing today is fueled by this industry's entitlement to our attention. > Imagine how more efficient things could…

Well first you're going to have to convince people to pay for the things they use. History has shown us they have practically zero interest in doing so. People would rather trade their attention for free stuff than their money for priced goods and services. The industry has grown out of this human behavior, not vv. [edit] Humans have a limited capacity for making purchasing decisions. This is why in 20+ years nobody…

> People would rather trade their attention for free stuff than their money for priced goods and services.

How would you explain the fact that people paid for cable and premium cable channels (e.g. HBO) in the past when free network TV has always been an option?

Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other

#136

Post by vineyardmike »

mbesto wrote: post #51
whatshisface wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is cut and dry what they want, but the question is, do the terms give them merely the right to terminate your account... or to sue you?

The question is sue you for what? How do the quantify the damages? It would be an interesting law suit because if AA wins, then it means they are deliberately admitting that customers who regularly track their points causes financial harm to AA.

It obviously causes them harm. The points are often redeemed at a discount to their regular tickets... which are often loss leaders for their points business.

Most airlines lose money on every ticket, and make it up in their rewards programs. Only to lose money again on redemption. They really only make money on some of the inefficiencies..

Easy to follow source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggUduBmvQ_4

Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other

#137

Post by whatshisface »

mbesto wrote: post #51
whatshisface wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is cut and dry what they want, but the question is, do the terms give them merely the right to terminate your account... or to sue you?

The question is sue you for what? How do the quantify the damages? It would be an interesting law suit because if AA wins, then it means they are deliberately admitting that customers who regularly track their points causes financial harm to AA.

It reminds me of card counting - it's just playing the game, but in a way that's qualitatively different from typical play. Just like card counting, the house doesn't like people who win too much.

Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other

#138

Post by easton »

chrismeller wrote: post #46
ipaddr wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably for openness regardless of how many peanuts American airlines gives you.

Pfft. They don’t offer peanuts anymore, even for Executive Platinum.

Pretzels are still pretty good, although they won’t give them to you on short haul unless you’re in first.

Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other

#139

Post by matheusmoreira »

arcticbull wrote: post #121
matheusmoreira wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Advertising ruins everything. Everything. They are directly and indirectly responsible for the poor state of consumer technology today. Privacy violations? Advertising. Borderline unusable websites? Advertising. Deliberately addictive social media? Advertising. Almost everything that's wrong with computing today is fueled by this industry's entitlement to our attention. > Imagine how more efficient things could…

Well first you're going to have to convince people to pay for the things they use. History has shown us they have practically zero interest in doing so. People would rather trade their attention for free stuff than their money for priced goods and services. The industry has grown out of this human behavior, not vv. [edit] Humans have a limited capacity for making purchasing decisions. This is why in 20+ years nobody…

> It's easy to say "ads bad" - ok, but the real question is what are we going to replace them with?

I don't know and at this point I don't think it even matters. Every single time I discuss ads here on HN I learn new reasons to hate it. Some days ago I read a story about a politician who deliberately slowed down traffic so people would be forced to "contemplate" this garbage. The sheer audacity of these people never fails to impress me.

It's irredeemable and the fact that there's currently no alternative is no reason not to get rid of it. We really should just do it and let the chips fall where they may. People will figure out a way to make money. They have to, because the alternative is to go bankrupt. Maybe they'll make less money and that's absolutely fine.

Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other

#140

Post by codinger »

arcticbull wrote: post #121
matheusmoreira wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Advertising ruins everything. Everything. They are directly and indirectly responsible for the poor state of consumer technology today. Privacy violations? Advertising. Borderline unusable websites? Advertising. Deliberately addictive social media? Advertising. Almost everything that's wrong with computing today is fueled by this industry's entitlement to our attention. > Imagine how more efficient things could…

Well first you're going to have to convince people to pay for the things they use. History has shown us they have practically zero interest in doing so. People would rather trade their attention for free stuff than their money for priced goods and services. The industry has grown out of this human behavior, not vv. [edit] Humans have a limited capacity for making purchasing decisions. This is why in 20+ years nobody…

Nah, the video game industry has micro-transactions down to a science.
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