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The reply by "whiddershins" is spot on, but I will elaborate a bit. The first point is that you are very quick to label all paid services as "luxury". Sure, cha

The reply by "whiddershins" is spot on, but I will elaborate a bit. The first point is that you are very quick to label all paid services as "luxury". Sure, champagne is a luxury, but what the companies are doing is taking what used to be a "normal" service, stripping it of anything they can think of and declaring it the new "normal" and all those stripped thing a "luxury". I don't think being able to sit without discomfort or choose a seat is really a "luxury". Regarding the example he gave - I am not sure how the IPhone applies, but I think another example would be the healthcare. When everyone pays for his own healthcare through a system of private insurers you get the horror that is American healthcare. When people just pay taxes, which collectively pay for medical expenses you get Western European system.

notheguyouthink 10y ago
I mean, it's all luxury as far as i'm concerned - and in the right of the provider to decide on packages. If they want to offer terrible seating for not-cheaper prices, let them - the market (consumers) should be able to decide not to use them. This is a very different argument to me than healthcare though. In my world view, healthcare and education have widespread, socially beneficial properties. I pay my local taxes to fund a highschool that i don't have kids in, because i don't want morons in the work force next year. Likewise, i want to pay more taxes for healthy educated people in the work force, because i feel it benefits me. This is very different than how much an airline is charging for their service. An airline is no different than a hotdog vendor to me, and they should be able to charge whatever they want for their services. Granted, i will admit that there is a bit of a slippery slope - a good example being Comcast. I loathe Comcast's business practices because we (many of us) feel trapped by them, as we only have one choice, due to the difficult nature of laying pipes. Same goes for airlines i imagine. If all airlines started to gouge us, many people can't simply drive instead - so clearly some regulation is needed in the case of airlines that the hotdog vendor doesn't have to worry about.
snrplfth 10y ago
I am not labelling all paid services as luxuries. But some are, and different people will consider different things luxuries. I mean, what is discomfort? (Should seats be leather, say? Should they recline? How far?) How much is choosing a seat worth? Some people really like an aisle, some like a window, some don't care. When you decide that a particular service is required to be included, you're saying that people that don't want it will have to pay for it anyways. I don't see why that is the default argument that doesn't have to be defended, while not having to pay for something you don't want is the idea that has a high burden of argument. The heart of the argument made in the article is that somehow, by unbundling services that were bundled, airlines are somehow able to raise prices above what they were otherwise able to do. I don't think that's true at all. I mean, I sure like a pop and a box of chocolate-covered raisins when I go to the movies. Therefore I demand that all movie tickets include food. I like to watch streaming videos on my phone. Therefore I demand that all phone plans include unlimited data. I like big comfortable seats and laptop plugs when I travel on the inter-city train. Therefore I demand that municipal buses include these things. You see where this goes? And US healthcare is totally not the same. Firstly, the majority of US healthcare expenditures are tax-funded, about 65%, mostly through Medicare, Medicaid, tax subsidies and other programs. Secondly, it is effectively cartelized by the government, through incentives that make it extremely tax-advantageous to get healthcare through employers, to limits on the training and numbers of doctors that drive up prices, to now, a system of exchanges that require that people purchase insurance from approved insurers at government-set prices. It is so, so incredibly far from "everyone pays for his own healthcare through a system of private insurers".
linkregister 10y ago
Your healthcare analogy isn't good. The American health care system is dysfunctional for a variety of reasons; privatization is one aspect. There are efficiency gains to centralization under a public system, but it's not a sufficient condition. There are plenty of countries that operate on a more private (less regulated) platform that have excellent health care opportunities, e.g. Thailand. Likewise, there are plenty of countries that operate on a publicly-funded model that have inferior healthcare, e.g. Russian Federation.

notheguyouthink 10y ago

I mean, it's all luxury as far as i'm concerned - and in the right of the provider to decide on packages. If they want to offer terrible seating for not-cheaper prices, let them - the market (consumers) should be able to decide not to use them. This is a very different argument to me than healthcare though. In my world view, healthcare and education have widespread, socially beneficial properties. I pay my local taxes to fund a highschool that i don't have kids in, because i don't want morons in the work force next year. Likewise, i want to pay more taxes for healthy educated people in the work force, because i feel it benefits me. This is very different than how much an airline is charging for their service. An airline is no different than a hotdog vendor to me, and they should be able to charge whatever they want for their services. Granted, i will admit that there is a bit of a slippery slope - a good example being Comcast. I loathe Comcast's business practices because we (many of us) feel trapped by them, as we only have one choice, due to the difficult nature of laying pipes. Same goes for airlines i imagine. If all airlines started to gouge us, many people can't simply drive instead - so clearly some regulation is needed in the case of airlines that the hotdog vendor doesn't have to worry about.

snrplfth 10y ago

I am not labelling all paid services as luxuries. But some are, and different people will consider different things luxuries. I mean, what is discomfort? (Should seats be leather, say? Should they recline? How far?) How much is choosing a seat worth? Some people really like an aisle, some like a window, some don't care. When you decide that a particular service is required to be included, you're saying that people that don't want it will have to pay for it anyways. I don't see why that is the default argument that doesn't have to be defended, while not having to pay for something you don't want is the idea that has a high burden of argument. The heart of the argument made in the article is that somehow, by unbundling services that were bundled, airlines are somehow able to raise prices above what they were otherwise able to do. I don't think that's true at all. I mean, I sure like a pop and a box of chocolate-covered raisins when I go to the movies. Therefore I demand that all movie tickets include food. I like to watch streaming videos on my phone. Therefore I demand that all phone plans include unlimited data. I like big comfortable seats and laptop plugs when I travel on the inter-city train. Therefore I demand that municipal buses include these things. You see where this goes? And US healthcare is totally not the same. Firstly, the majority of US healthcare expenditures are tax-funded, about 65%, mostly through Medicare, Medicaid, tax subsidies and other programs. Secondly, it is effectively cartelized by the government, through incentives that make it extremely tax-advantageous to get healthcare through employers, to limits on the training and numbers of doctors that drive up prices, to now, a system of exchanges that require that people purchase insurance from approved insurers at government-set prices. It is so, so incredibly far from "everyone pays for his own healthcare through a system of private insurers".

linkregister 10y ago

Your healthcare analogy isn't good. The American health care system is dysfunctional for a variety of reasons; privatization is one aspect. There are efficiency gains to centralization under a public system, but it's not a sufficient condition. There are plenty of countries that operate on a more private (less regulated) platform that have excellent health care opportunities, e.g. Thailand. Likewise, there are plenty of countries that operate on a publicly-funded model that have inferior healthcare, e.g. Russian Federation.