Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is American cell phone service so expensive?
In comparison to what..? Vietnam? Canada?
Other G7 countries. Unlimited data is about $15 a month in the uk, 150G is even less
Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups
451–460 of 533 posts
Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups
#452Earlier quoted context omitted.
I once tried to book a flight with the same-day return; the price for the return flight was mad expensive. The same return flight was a few hundred euros cheaper if you booked the initial flight a day earlier. My theory is that most same-day travel is for business, and businesses are far less price-sensitive than consumers and will just pay whatever. I suspect this is what's going on here. Most solo travellers are fo…
Just in terms of simple economics: Without price discrimination, there is one price, and then there are two triangles "left" of the price: What consumers would have paid, but don't need to, that's the consumer surplus (between price and demand), and what producers would have sold for, but got more for, that's the producer surplus (between price and supply). With price discrimination, what happens is that the producer…
Everyone knows airline transport is a service, not a good.
Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups
#453[deleted]
Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups
#454Earlier quoted context omitted.
I personally think it's fair if they charge by weight. The post office does it, why not airlines?
You mean mass. Otherwise I would buy seats for my personal helium balloons on either side of me.
> personal helium balloons
Not allowed because they're too big to be carry ons.
Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups
#455Airlines need to be regulated and treated like public utility which is exactly what they are.
No they aren't. Public utilities generally give you only one choice of provider, which is why they need to be regulated because of their monopoly status. When you fly, you usually have a choice between lots of airlines. So there's nothing "public utility" about it whatsoever. Airports, on the other hand, are considered public infrastructure. There are also sometimes routes that are only served by one airline, which a…
I don’t follow your logic.
Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups
#456I feel like people are suspending their reasoning in order to maximally shit on airlines in this thread (because yes, they do have a history of predatory pricing practices). The problem with this isn't the difference in prices - charging less for buying in bulk is a normal thing that's probably been done by merchants since the invention of money. The problem with this is the lack of communication. There's no advertis…
The shadiness and manipulation, and extraction at every step, while monetizing or cutting every possible part of the experience and aggressively underpaying every employee.
This list of practices may sound like “shitting” on the companies but is just that - a list of their normalized practices.
Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups
#457Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't find the thread convincing. The "standard" argument is that grocery stores bake in a 2% (or whatever) interchange rate into their prices, but only rich people get 1% (or whatever) back in cash back, whereas poor people don't. As a result, poor people are paying 1% higher prices on goods compared to rich people. Patrick doesn't really dispute this, but tries to argue that this doesn't matter because rich peopl…
> The "standard" argument is that grocery stores bake in a 2% (or whatever) interchange rate into their prices, but only rich people get 1% (or whatever) back in cash back, whereas poor people don't. As a result, poor people are paying 1% higher prices on goods compared to rich people. And the thread counters that in several ways: rich people spend more in total at the store so their interchange costs are more than m…
>rich people spend more in total at the store so their interchange costs are more than made up for by actual spending
Suppose people making $1M+ are taxed at 20%, and everyone else is taxed at 25%. Ignoring the small segment of people making just under $1M, most people would at least characterize this as unfair. You could plausibly this isn't a "subsidy", because the $1M earners are paying more taxes in absolute terms. However it doesn't really refute the argument that the $1M earners are paying "less". Maybe "subsidy" is the wrong word for this, but it's pretty clear this is what detractors of credit card are pointing out.
Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups
#458Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The thing I find interesting about a lot of things like this is that they feel like a holdover of half the era where negotiating prices was normal: today, for most people in the US, most shopping is just a matter of going somewhere and paying a set price and you don’t argue with the seller to get a better one. B2B transactions still usually involve a negotiation, I think, but it’s basically gone for consumers. Not r…
Yeah, but it's not routine. I don't go into Walmart and quibble unlike some Middle Eastern bazaar. I probably do some negotiation at the car dealer (which, incidentally, many people on this board probably hate or with a job offer--ditto). And coupon stuff is mostly pretty low dollar; the grocery store flyers I get go in the trash.
>but it's not routine
Retailers often have weekly sales. If that's not "routine" what is? Is it only "negotiation" if it's happening on a per customer basis? Moreover apps with targeted offers is literally doing that. The company is assessing a given customer's willingness to pay, possibly on a daily basis, and sending offers/coupons in response.
Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups
#459Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, but it's not routine. I don't go into Walmart and quibble unlike some Middle Eastern bazaar. I probably do some negotiation at the car dealer (which, incidentally, many people on this board probably hate or with a job offer--ditto). And coupon stuff is mostly pretty low dollar; the grocery store flyers I get go in the trash.
>but it's not routine Retailers often have weekly sales. If that's not "routine" what is? Is it only "negotiation" if it's happening on a per customer basis? Moreover apps with targeted offers is literally doing that. The company is assessing a given customer's willingness to pay, possibly on a daily basis, and sending offers/coupons in response.
It's price discrimination in that different people have different tolerances for spending time and energy on hunting for deals. I'm sure not lining up at 6am for Black Friday sales though I may take advantage of a President's Day sale if I need some large electronics anyway. It's not really negotiation as the term is normally used. The process is pretty different.
Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups
#460Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There is absolutely an ethical problem with charging people different prices for the same exact product/service One, there isn’t. One party undercutting another for the same product is how competition generates consumer surplus. Two, it isn’t the same product. When I fly with my family, we check in together. We board together. I collect their docs on my phone and double check they have them on theirs. I turn down u…
Mm, it feels unfair. I was trying to reason through why I think it's an ethical problem and that's what I've come up with. You're not treating people equally - whether it's in person bartering where you make assumptions about them based on snap judgements or via airlines seen here. There's an even bigger fairness issue when there's such a huge data knowledge gap between the parties, both knowing that there is this hi…
I think this is a framing issue.
Is it fair to charge people with different sized families different prices (per unit) for toilet paper?
vs.
Is it fair to charge people different prices (per unit) for different sized packages of toilet paper?
The former makes it seem nefarious but the latter is commonly accepted as fair. Same for airline tickets - if there's a discount for buying in bulk that's just as fair as a discount for buying toilet paper in bulk.