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It's peculiar how stereotypical some of the Americans in the comments are. It seems like there's a prevailing attitude of not wanting to "subsidize" others. Whe

It's peculiar how stereotypical some of the Americans in the comments are. It seems like there's a prevailing attitude of not wanting to "subsidize" others. Whether that includes people who want to bring luggage, people who would like a meal on the long flight or those that don't travel very often - does not matter, what matters is that it's the other people, who are not you. I think that that same attitude is responsible for the current state of the higher education and healthcare in the US. As long as the interested parties can present the "us versus them" outlook to the public ("them" is of course poor/lazy/lower class people), they can get away with lots and lots.

jcizzle 10y ago
There are 12 comments and 350 million Americans. That represents about .00000000034% Americans. But continue to jump to conclusions and create generalizations based on your limited worldview, because that's not at all the same attitude responsible for the current state of humanity.
- eganist 10y ago
  I mean, this same mindset did win the election...
- dagenleg 10y ago
  I am sorry if I accidentally hurt your feelings or slighted your national pride. I am simply making an observation based on my general experience with Americans on the web and the sentiment I've noticed. My experience certainly is biased, as people commenting on the Internet do not equally represent whole American nation but I don't feel I need to interview every single one of those 350 millions to make my remark.
  - jcizzle 10y ago
    This is the most unfortunate part. You think that I've picked some side in this; that I'm defending the concept of being American or the things these people are saying. I'm saying you're generalizing. This behavior is toxic. Instead of saying, 'You know what, you're right, that's really not a representative sample size and I shouldn't have made the generalization.', you doubled down on making it about generalizations. But at the end of the day, the only person that behavior hurts is you. So, sorry man.
    - unclenoriega 10y ago
      Your comment did come off as very defensive, at least to me, and presumably to dagenleg as well. I don't think dagenleg is saying that all Americans have this view. (The comment even says it's a stereotype.) I certainly see this thinking all the time in America. It seems that many people's greatest fear is that they will have to subsidize someone else's life in some way. I don't have much direct experience with European culture, but this type of thinking seems less prevalent in Western Europe.
    - notheguyouthink 10y ago
      > This is the most unfortunate part. You think that I've picked some side in this; that I'm defending the concept of being American or the things these people are saying. You have, though, have you not? You have picked the side of "don't generalize people ever", clearly, no? I'm on the side of "generalizations and stereotypes are not inherently bad, it's the actions of the person that are bad" Do you disagree with that? You call my actions toxic, but what exactly did i do that was toxic? I'm advocating that we judge people by their actions, not their beliefs. What is so wrong with that? In other words, Don't assume i'm somehow "against" a group of people just because i have assumptions towards them. My dad is heavily religious, i assume and generalize that most religious people don't want me swearing heavily around them - so what! Generalizations aren't bad. Actions are bad. I don't get your view point, clearly.
- notheguyouthink 10y ago
  I'm in America and i completely agree with his view. You're being overly sensitive. Generalizations aren't bad, they're just one persons understanding of a group of people. Clearly, based on his/her experiences he is able to generalize the above statement, and that isn't incorrect - it's just his/her generalization. We all have them, and they just represent our combined experiences. Generalizations are only bad if you condemn others based on them - but that's not the fault of the generalization, but rather the fault of the person. Generalizations are how you live life. You get mugged 10 times by the same race/class/location/etc, you might start to generalize against that combination, and you're not wrong, it clearly happened. That's not to say that all of that race/class/location will be the same way. Same goes for animals. If i get bit by a snake 10 times, i might start to fear snakes. Are all snaked bad? No, but my experience with them is bad, so rightfully i have a bit of a stigma and fear towards them. This culture of fearing assumptions is bewildering to me. Can we just blame the actual actions of people, and not assume that because they generalize that might, at some point, be classist/racist/etc? Can we have some sanity here?
snrplfth 10y ago
So people should have to buy more expensive services, bundled in a way they don't like, want or need, just so others can have the price for those services hidden in the overall price? Why? If somebody wants to carry a lot of luggage on, or eat a bunch of in-flight meals, that's fine. Doesn't mean they get to demand that these things be included always, for everybody. We could demand that complimentary champagne and cheesecake be included in a flight; that doesn't mean that it wouldn't cost money or that people who didn't want it wouldn't be paying for the people who do. It doesn't help people, especially those with less money, to demand that only comprehensive and luxurious services be available.
- whiddershins 10y ago
  Are you replying only to the comment, or to the article as well? Because the article makes the point that these basic fares are simply a way to increase prices. As for your reaction to the comment: you make really great points while maybe neglecting to acknowledge that many services are cheaper at scale. So by providing them to everyone as part of a bundle, the overall cost is way lower for everyone. The iPhone might be a great example of this.
  - snrplfth 10y ago
    I was responding to both. I simply do not agree with the idea that, if they were required to bundle these services together at some set level of service, that this would somehow make airlines unable to increase the prices. What I suggest is happening here is that the airlines would have increased their bundled prices, but aware of how price-sensitive flyers are, and how many of them are willing to forgo extra services, they've decided to unbundle instead. I mean, what's stopping them from just raising prices for bundled services? Nothing, besides competition. The fact that these services can be paid for separately is not some way for them to "get you" somehow, it's just unbundling. Yes, there's theoretically economies of scale for some things. But there's also a lot of potential advantages to pricing specific services - especially for things like luggage, where capacity per passenger often has hard limits. If there really are economies of scale, I suspect the airlines themselves will find them more effectively than blanket regulations requiring a particular service level. How is the iPhone an example?
pc86 10y ago
What is wrong with only wanting to pay for the services which you consume? I want to fly in a bigger seat, with checked luggage and a carry-on, eat, and have an alcoholic beverage or two. If someone wants to be on the same place with a single bag, the smallest seat, and not eat or drink, they should absolutely have a much cheaper experience than me. That's not classism, it's common sense. I shouldn't get free drinks at their expense.
- dagenleg 10y ago
  Nothing wrong at all if it was really working that way, i.e. that someone would really get a cheaper price than a normal package. The article does make a point that it's not really what is happening, instead the companies are squeezing the money out of customers in any way they can. In the end everyone wants to make money, but at certain point it starts bordering on unethical, this squeezing of money out of customers. I am pointing out that if one spins these practices in a certain way, one can even get the customers to support the initiatives which are not in their interests.
  - pc86 10y ago
    > the companies are squeezing the money out of customers in any way they can. Or: "the companies are pricing competitively while maintaining a profit. Take a look at Southwest's profit margin.[0] 7-10% is nothing, especially when you look at the huge maintenance and regulatory costs surrounding commercial carriers. At 7% an unexpectedly bad month could be disastrous. I mean look at the margins moving into the 10th anniversary of 9/11. From 3.9% profit to 3.3% loss. > I am pointing out that if one spins these practices in a certain way, one can even get the customers to support the initiatives which are not in their interests. It's in my interest to get everything for free but that's not realistic, is it? You're acting like the airlines are a dark cabal of billionaires trying to trick passengers into giving away money for nothing in return. It's totally within their right to raise prices for whatever reason they want, and it's totally within passengers' rights to shop elsewhere. There are a lot of carriers at every point on the price spectrum. [0] https://ycharts.com/companies/LUV/profit_margin https://ycharts.com/companies/LUV/profit_margin
jdmichal 10y ago
Meanwhile, anyone flying in economy / coach is being heavily subsidized by those who paid for business / first. (Of course, a lot of those seats go to free upgrades now...)
arximboldi 10y ago
That is an interesting thought... As a non-USA person here I was also amazed with some of these comments. But I am not sure it is only about "subsidizing" others (which it also is). If you read a lot of these comments, they go into great lengths into describing their particular live choices, their very deliberate little decisions they make while traveling all the time, and how these makes them special. I feel that there is another side to this individualism: the pride on ones choices, on being unique and in some way, standing out of the masses through their clever use of their options. It reminded me about another thing that surprised me in the USA: food menus are lengthy, and everything is customizable! You have to choose ingredients, topping, side, everything! I guess, for a lot of USAmericans this feels empowering. Interestingly, coming from the other side of the Atlantic, it had the opposite effect on me: I felt overwhelmed, that I was required to do make decisions and do too much thinking, that at the end, it was the chef's job to offer me a menu with dishes that make sense and taste good! In fact in Europe, good restaurants tend to have very few options, you go there because you acknowledge that the person that designed the menu knows more about those dishes than you... I guess, I am also ok about "subsidizing" others... I know that some days I will eat at the flight, some days I won't, some days I will need extra luggage, some days I won't... It is just easier if we don't have to go through all the bureaucracy of managing these decisions. It is cheaper too, since the accounting and planning becomes easier. Some people might be getting be getting more or less out of it, but it evens out with time anyways. I can get my "feeling of importance" by other means. There is something more this might show us about the "customization" vs "just works" in how different people prefer their software. But I will think about this some other day...
- busterarm 10y ago
  American here but I'm with you on the food menu thing. This is a red hot issue for me. People who make food should have an opinion about how it should taste. I hate all this "have it your way" bullshit. The menu for this salad place gives me panic attacks: http://choptsalad.com/ http://choptsalad.com/ Culturally we've lost the idea of tastemakers, whether it's food, music, film, or whatever. Everyone's free to enjoy what they like and having any kind of sophistication is faux pas. Having strong opinions about what is good and what sucks will quickly get the ire of others.
cryoshon 10y ago
> It seems like there's a prevailing attitude of not wanting to "subsidize" others you mean "greed"
hedora 10y ago
Not sure why you call us vs them an American sentiment. I think you'll find equally many Americans pissed off about this because it is an experiment in how much you have to abuse poor people to successfully extract more profit out of the lower middle class. We already have people dying of deep vein thrombosis due to inadequate leg room. Now they want to take away the restroom. When train systems of old did that, people started defecating in the cabin. That and overcrowding spread disease. I'm sure the thread of cholera will get another 10% of the population to pony up $50. Next step (based on railway abuses) is to pipe "more" oxygen into first and economy plus. (The rails stopped covering the economy section in some areas, but I don't think airlines could get away with depressurizing coach). After that: Livestock! (I had a reference for this railway stuff, it was a famous historcal book. Can't find it right now.) Also, the US air system used to be heavily regulated and much nicer from a customer service perspective. A lot of Americans still remember those days.
- scottkduncan 10y ago
  The US air system also used to be much more expensive and served far fewer routes, pricing out a significant portion of consumers: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/how-airline-ticket-prices-fell-50-in-30-years-and-why-nobody-noticed/273506/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/how-airl...
SilasX 10y ago
It's majestically reasonable to want the fee structure to cause people to economize on legitimately costly stuff. Consider: "Global warming is causing problems that we need to fix, and that needs money. How should we get the money: A) Fixed, $1000/person head tax B) Carbon tax" I think you'd be pretty livid about paying the same, regardless of how much you economize on your carbon emissions. Health care is a special case because a majority of the ballooning-cost stuff is randomly distributed and it's effectively set up as (social) insurance, where everyone is paying for the risk of needing that care.
6DM 10y ago
My first flight where snacks cost really pissed me off. If I buy a pack of nutter butters (which is bigger than the provided snack) and a 24 pack of coke and sell them to break even. It's going to cost a whopping 83 cents per person. That doesn't include buying in bulk if I were a large company. So I don't really get this "subsidizing" mindset. Pretty much everyone takes a snack w/ drink. Haven't seen anyone skip it so I know a lot of people want it.

jcizzle 10y ago

There are 12 comments and 350 million Americans. That represents about .00000000034% Americans. But continue to jump to conclusions and create generalizations based on your limited worldview, because that's not at all the same attitude responsible for the current state of humanity.

eganist 10y ago
I mean, this same mindset did win the election...
dagenleg 10y ago
I am sorry if I accidentally hurt your feelings or slighted your national pride. I am simply making an observation based on my general experience with Americans on the web and the sentiment I've noticed. My experience certainly is biased, as people commenting on the Internet do not equally represent whole American nation but I don't feel I need to interview every single one of those 350 millions to make my remark.
- jcizzle 10y ago
  This is the most unfortunate part. You think that I've picked some side in this; that I'm defending the concept of being American or the things these people are saying. I'm saying you're generalizing. This behavior is toxic. Instead of saying, 'You know what, you're right, that's really not a representative sample size and I shouldn't have made the generalization.', you doubled down on making it about generalizations. But at the end of the day, the only person that behavior hurts is you. So, sorry man.
  - unclenoriega 10y ago
    Your comment did come off as very defensive, at least to me, and presumably to dagenleg as well. I don't think dagenleg is saying that all Americans have this view. (The comment even says it's a stereotype.) I certainly see this thinking all the time in America. It seems that many people's greatest fear is that they will have to subsidize someone else's life in some way. I don't have much direct experience with European culture, but this type of thinking seems less prevalent in Western Europe.
  - notheguyouthink 10y ago
    > This is the most unfortunate part. You think that I've picked some side in this; that I'm defending the concept of being American or the things these people are saying. You have, though, have you not? You have picked the side of "don't generalize people ever", clearly, no? I'm on the side of "generalizations and stereotypes are not inherently bad, it's the actions of the person that are bad" Do you disagree with that? You call my actions toxic, but what exactly did i do that was toxic? I'm advocating that we judge people by their actions, not their beliefs. What is so wrong with that? In other words, Don't assume i'm somehow "against" a group of people just because i have assumptions towards them. My dad is heavily religious, i assume and generalize that most religious people don't want me swearing heavily around them - so what! Generalizations aren't bad. Actions are bad. I don't get your view point, clearly.
notheguyouthink 10y ago
I'm in America and i completely agree with his view. You're being overly sensitive. Generalizations aren't bad, they're just one persons understanding of a group of people. Clearly, based on his/her experiences he is able to generalize the above statement, and that isn't incorrect - it's just his/her generalization. We all have them, and they just represent our combined experiences. Generalizations are only bad if you condemn others based on them - but that's not the fault of the generalization, but rather the fault of the person. Generalizations are how you live life. You get mugged 10 times by the same race/class/location/etc, you might start to generalize against that combination, and you're not wrong, it clearly happened. That's not to say that all of that race/class/location will be the same way. Same goes for animals. If i get bit by a snake 10 times, i might start to fear snakes. Are all snaked bad? No, but my experience with them is bad, so rightfully i have a bit of a stigma and fear towards them. This culture of fearing assumptions is bewildering to me. Can we just blame the actual actions of people, and not assume that because they generalize that might, at some point, be classist/racist/etc? Can we have some sanity here?

snrplfth 10y ago

So people should have to buy more expensive services, bundled in a way they don't like, want or need, just so others can have the price for those services hidden in the overall price? Why? If somebody wants to carry a lot of luggage on, or eat a bunch of in-flight meals, that's fine. Doesn't mean they get to demand that these things be included always, for everybody. We could demand that complimentary champagne and cheesecake be included in a flight; that doesn't mean that it wouldn't cost money or that people who didn't want it wouldn't be paying for the people who do. It doesn't help people, especially those with less money, to demand that only comprehensive and luxurious services be available.

whiddershins 10y ago
Are you replying only to the comment, or to the article as well? Because the article makes the point that these basic fares are simply a way to increase prices. As for your reaction to the comment: you make really great points while maybe neglecting to acknowledge that many services are cheaper at scale. So by providing them to everyone as part of a bundle, the overall cost is way lower for everyone. The iPhone might be a great example of this.
- snrplfth 10y ago
  I was responding to both. I simply do not agree with the idea that, if they were required to bundle these services together at some set level of service, that this would somehow make airlines unable to increase the prices. What I suggest is happening here is that the airlines would have increased their bundled prices, but aware of how price-sensitive flyers are, and how many of them are willing to forgo extra services, they've decided to unbundle instead. I mean, what's stopping them from just raising prices for bundled services? Nothing, besides competition. The fact that these services can be paid for separately is not some way for them to "get you" somehow, it's just unbundling. Yes, there's theoretically economies of scale for some things. But there's also a lot of potential advantages to pricing specific services - especially for things like luggage, where capacity per passenger often has hard limits. If there really are economies of scale, I suspect the airlines themselves will find them more effectively than blanket regulations requiring a particular service level. How is the iPhone an example?

pc86 10y ago

What is wrong with only wanting to pay for the services which you consume? I want to fly in a bigger seat, with checked luggage and a carry-on, eat, and have an alcoholic beverage or two. If someone wants to be on the same place with a single bag, the smallest seat, and not eat or drink, they should absolutely have a much cheaper experience than me. That's not classism, it's common sense. I shouldn't get free drinks at their expense.

dagenleg 10y ago
Nothing wrong at all if it was really working that way, i.e. that someone would really get a cheaper price than a normal package. The article does make a point that it's not really what is happening, instead the companies are squeezing the money out of customers in any way they can. In the end everyone wants to make money, but at certain point it starts bordering on unethical, this squeezing of money out of customers. I am pointing out that if one spins these practices in a certain way, one can even get the customers to support the initiatives which are not in their interests.
- pc86 10y ago
  > the companies are squeezing the money out of customers in any way they can. Or: "the companies are pricing competitively while maintaining a profit. Take a look at Southwest's profit margin.[0] 7-10% is nothing, especially when you look at the huge maintenance and regulatory costs surrounding commercial carriers. At 7% an unexpectedly bad month could be disastrous. I mean look at the margins moving into the 10th anniversary of 9/11. From 3.9% profit to 3.3% loss. > I am pointing out that if one spins these practices in a certain way, one can even get the customers to support the initiatives which are not in their interests. It's in my interest to get everything for free but that's not realistic, is it? You're acting like the airlines are a dark cabal of billionaires trying to trick passengers into giving away money for nothing in return. It's totally within their right to raise prices for whatever reason they want, and it's totally within passengers' rights to shop elsewhere. There are a lot of carriers at every point on the price spectrum. [0] https://ycharts.com/companies/LUV/profit_margin https://ycharts.com/companies/LUV/profit_margin

jdmichal 10y ago

Meanwhile, anyone flying in economy / coach is being heavily subsidized by those who paid for business / first. (Of course, a lot of those seats go to free upgrades now...)

arximboldi 10y ago

That is an interesting thought... As a non-USA person here I was also amazed with some of these comments. But I am not sure it is only about "subsidizing" others (which it also is). If you read a lot of these comments, they go into great lengths into describing their particular live choices, their very deliberate little decisions they make while traveling all the time, and how these makes them special. I feel that there is another side to this individualism: the pride on ones choices, on being unique and in some way, standing out of the masses through their clever use of their options. It reminded me about another thing that surprised me in the USA: food menus are lengthy, and everything is customizable! You have to choose ingredients, topping, side, everything! I guess, for a lot of USAmericans this feels empowering. Interestingly, coming from the other side of the Atlantic, it had the opposite effect on me: I felt overwhelmed, that I was required to do make decisions and do too much thinking, that at the end, it was the chef's job to offer me a menu with dishes that make sense and taste good! In fact in Europe, good restaurants tend to have very few options, you go there because you acknowledge that the person that designed the menu knows more about those dishes than you... I guess, I am also ok about "subsidizing" others... I know that some days I will eat at the flight, some days I won't, some days I will need extra luggage, some days I won't... It is just easier if we don't have to go through all the bureaucracy of managing these decisions. It is cheaper too, since the accounting and planning becomes easier. Some people might be getting be getting more or less out of it, but it evens out with time anyways. I can get my "feeling of importance" by other means. There is something more this might show us about the "customization" vs "just works" in how different people prefer their software. But I will think about this some other day...

busterarm 10y ago
American here but I'm with you on the food menu thing. This is a red hot issue for me. People who make food should have an opinion about how it should taste. I hate all this "have it your way" bullshit. The menu for this salad place gives me panic attacks: http://choptsalad.com/ http://choptsalad.com/ Culturally we've lost the idea of tastemakers, whether it's food, music, film, or whatever. Everyone's free to enjoy what they like and having any kind of sophistication is faux pas. Having strong opinions about what is good and what sucks will quickly get the ire of others.

cryoshon 10y ago

> It seems like there's a prevailing attitude of not wanting to "subsidize" others you mean "greed"

hedora 10y ago

Not sure why you call us vs them an American sentiment. I think you'll find equally many Americans pissed off about this because it is an experiment in how much you have to abuse poor people to successfully extract more profit out of the lower middle class. We already have people dying of deep vein thrombosis due to inadequate leg room. Now they want to take away the restroom. When train systems of old did that, people started defecating in the cabin. That and overcrowding spread disease. I'm sure the thread of cholera will get another 10% of the population to pony up $50. Next step (based on railway abuses) is to pipe "more" oxygen into first and economy plus. (The rails stopped covering the economy section in some areas, but I don't think airlines could get away with depressurizing coach). After that: Livestock! (I had a reference for this railway stuff, it was a famous historcal book. Can't find it right now.) Also, the US air system used to be heavily regulated and much nicer from a customer service perspective. A lot of Americans still remember those days.

scottkduncan 10y ago
The US air system also used to be much more expensive and served far fewer routes, pricing out a significant portion of consumers: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/how-airline-ticket-prices-fell-50-in-30-years-and-why-nobody-noticed/273506/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/how-airl...

SilasX 10y ago

It's majestically reasonable to want the fee structure to cause people to economize on legitimately costly stuff. Consider: "Global warming is causing problems that we need to fix, and that needs money. How should we get the money: A) Fixed, $1000/person head tax B) Carbon tax" I think you'd be pretty livid about paying the same, regardless of how much you economize on your carbon emissions. Health care is a special case because a majority of the ballooning-cost stuff is randomly distributed and it's effectively set up as (social) insurance, where everyone is paying for the risk of needing that care.

6DM 10y ago

My first flight where snacks cost really pissed me off. If I buy a pack of nutter butters (which is bigger than the provided snack) and a 24 pack of coke and sell them to break even. It's going to cost a whopping 83 cents per person. That doesn't include buying in bulk if I were a large company. So I don't really get this "subsidizing" mindset. Pretty much everyone takes a snack w/ drink. Haven't seen anyone skip it so I know a lot of people want it.