481–490 of 628 posts
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This is a textbook case of competition pushing profits down to 0. That's an ideal case scenario. Why would you want to change this?
Maybe they would have been more profitable if they weren't funneling $1 million every year into their CEO's pocket?
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Why does any of this imply they should become a regulated utility? This seems like a textbook case of the free market pushing prices down to cost. Having alternative revenue streams pushed that minimal price down; but even without that, there is no reason to think the market would have done anything other than push prices to the lowest level possible in that environment as well.
Power companies are the classic example. If power companies were forced to compete, their costs + competition tend to drive them out of business. As a result most power companies are forced to operate in really tight constraints with very limited but predictable margin. I'm not saying that this a better outcome (power companies have their problems too). I was just commenting that this issue parallels the historical s…
The whole point of airplanes is that they require no physical infrastructure between point A and point B.
You can have competing power companies generating the power if the grid is owned by the state (or a regulated monopoly). Coincidentally, that is a good mental model for airlines because airports are often state-owned or if not are highly regulated.
I could easily afford any of their competitors but I always picked Spirit airlines. The pricing makes sense, pay more if you need more things. I liked Spirit because it was more akin to riding the bus, I got treated well every time by their staff and the experience was fairly consistent. Other airlines also have cramped sits, what little they did better than Spirit isn't worth the price, and the experience was incons…
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I think you're saying that there are businesses that rely on cheap air transportation that are very valuable, but at the same time couldn't afford higher air fees. But that's a contradiction. If they are valuable, their customers would pay more for their services - that's the definition of valuable. And if their customers would pay more, they could afford higher air fees.
No, all I’m saying is that air travel is so different than any other kind of travel, that it is very special, and borderline magical. Saying something like “nothing magical about air travel, things and people would still travel around the globe” is very reductive. I’m not giving my opinion on subsidies.
Person 1. "Airline service is more valuable than people will pay for, it's a genuine force multiplier that is unaffordable without being subsidized"
Person 2. "Airlines are not magical, people and goods will move another way, so it doesn't need subsidy".
You: "Airlines are magical. Those things cannot happen another way."
There's three conclusions for what you think: 1) that airlines are special and magical and doing something which cannot be done another way, but that has no value and airlines can go away. That's incoherent. 2) Airlines are both affordable and profitable. That doesn't seem to be true and needs some supporting. 3) Airlines are doing something uniquely 'magically' valuable, they are not profitable, then they need subsidising.
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> having to sit through three sales pitches instead of one I’m not from the US and have never flown any of the airlines being discussed here. I’ve never heard of this, is there some YouTube videos you can point me to.
I can't find videos. The cabin crew stand at the front of the plane, and either play a recording or make an announcement saying you can buy a lottery scratchcard for €2 or whatever, with some of the money going to charity. They then walk down the plane "scratchards? scratchcards?" They repeat this with a collection for charity (no scratchcard), a promoted drink, and some sort of food. I think this is mostly unique to…
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Trains have been proven to be able to go at least 375mph [0]. That would make NYC->SF take 6.9 hours to travel the 4162 km. The current average flight time from NYC to SF is 6.7 hours. So, it's at least technically possible. China is doing R&D on a partial-vacuum train (basically Musk's hyperloop thing) with a target of 1,243 mph[1]. That's probably a pipe dream, but worth mentioning nonetheless. > The government sho…
That's straight math. Not assuming any stops or slow downs. According to Gemini this hypothetical train would take about 18 hours. It would also cost hundreds of billions of dollars and a decade to build. Doesn't do much for seeing Uncle John next Tuesday. I like trains. I like them a lot. But they don't work over long distances. Particular when you have dozens of state and city jurisdictions to cross. Each of them g…
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> We should just naturally have the natural things that we naturally want, supplied by pixies. Is this how you see roads? Are we entitled for wanting those to be paid for by the state? What about the police? Should we have to pay whenever a police officer stops a mugging -- or is the wage of that officer, too, supplied by pixies?
These have remained unresolved questions, for me, for decades. When an internet pal was trying to found a libertarian (what noun should I use) locale, in Awdal in Somaliland (that detail of whether it was really in Somaliland or not was more debatable at the time), he first founded the Awdal Roads Company. https://web.archive.org/web/20040603010444/http://awdal.com/... So obviously there are theories about how these…
Everybody benefits from roads. People who use the roads directly, benefit from being able to move around quickly. Companies which move raw materials around to make products benefit from roads. People who buy products that were moved and delivered by road are benefitting. People who can work because roads enable tourists to come, benefit from them. People whose decent coworkers were once children who were educated by teachers who got to work by road, are benefitting years later. People whose family members didn't suffer a massive property loss because they could call a plumber who got there by road, are benefitting. People who can engage in long distance trade and relationships by post, benefit.
Even though there are people harmed by roads, there's nobody who doesn't benefit from roads.
We have ways to charge people-who-use-roads-more, more money; they pay larger road tax for commercial vehicles, for larger wheelbase vehicles, for larger engine vehicles, they pay more fuel tax because they drive further and buy more fuel, they pay more tax on parts and labour because they wear out their vehicles faster, replace parts and vehicles more often, spend more on mechanic work.
I also don't really want it so that a business owns private roads, and if the road gets a sinkhole and traffic cannot flow, the business can just shrug. If ambulances can't get through, if garbage collection can't happen, if people can't get to work, if companies can't deliver products, the company doesn't have to hurry to fix it. They only care to the extent that their toll income has dropped by one road's worth, but if they fix it within a month or two that might be fast enough for them - but not fast enough for the rest of us to avoid serious consequences.
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> You're subsidizing everyone else if you're not trying to get the best loyalty program. Quite the mentality...
Welcome to capitalism. Do you refuse to buy items on sale at the grocery store because they are subsidized by the more premium items? Do you refuse to buy the rotisserie chicken because it’s a loss-leader priced to get you into the door? You’re taking a 2%+ loss on every purchase if you’re not playing the game. But you better carry debit cards and cash because some vendors charge extra for credit cards, and some char…
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Power companies are the classic example. If power companies were forced to compete, their costs + competition tend to drive them out of business. As a result most power companies are forced to operate in really tight constraints with very limited but predictable margin. I'm not saying that this a better outcome (power companies have their problems too). I was just commenting that this issue parallels the historical s…
Power companies are a classic example of a natural monopoly because they require a ton of extremely expensive physical infrastructure to connect every house to the grid that would be wasteful to duplicate for every competitor. The whole point of airplanes is that they require no physical infrastructure between point A and point B. You can have competing power companies generating the power if the grid is owned by the…
So if they tend to compete themselves into oblivion, or need to turn into banks to subsidize their product, then it might make sense that they should be regulated monopolies.
Still you're probably right, if they can turn into banks and stay profitable, then maybe that's a better market outcome overall.
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That's a really cute idealized world, but it wouldn't work in practice. The structure of free-market capitalism all but precludes it.
The poster I replied to was already in the territory of idealized worlds. You can't just look at one side without looking at the other.