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I think you're right that highly competitive markets can push down quality but that happens because the customer accepts the lower quality. If air lines or the

I think you're right that highly competitive markets can push down quality but that happens because the customer accepts the lower quality. If air lines or the customers actually flying on these planes decided that they were not going to buy/fly on Boeing planes, the quality issue within the market would be resolved fairly quickly. Either Boeing would produce higher quality planes or they would go out of business and their market share would be taken over by a competitor with higher quality. Of course, I'm assuming that such a competitor exists. In case they don't, my argument becomes invalid.

somurzakov 7y ago
if US allowed foreign airlines to serve domestic routes, that would be the case
EarthIsHome 7y ago
> that happens because the customer accepts the lower quality. What choice do we have? Even if there is a choice, the majority of consumers don't have the luxury of choosing.
- SftwrSvior81 7y ago
  In my opinion, we all have the choice of not flying on Boeing planes any longer. If a company shows that they are willing to put profits above their customers' lives, then customers should not do business with that company any longer. The customer has to provide an incentive to the company to not do this. Going out of business is a very powerful incentive, I believe. If a company can kill a couple of hundred of its customers and still continue to make money, then why should it do anything differently, especially if the decision that caused the deaths also caused higher profits?
yourMadness 7y ago
Of course the customer accepts the lower quality. Dying once every 10 million flight hours instead of every 1000 million flight hours is a fair price to pay for 10 USD of savings.
- jonny_eh 7y ago
  If you're talking about airline passengers, they have no choice in which plane they fly in.
  - tedunangst 7y ago
    It's not hard to see which planes fly which routes.
    - tirpen 7y ago
      A lot of routes have only one airline though.
    - jen20 7y ago
      It's also not guaranteed which plane will fly which route. Every airline has "substitution" rules in their conditions of carriage, and frequently use them.
      - jonny_eh 7y ago
        Plus, flights get cancelled, and passengers get re-routed last minute.
      - mopsi 7y ago
        Depends on airline. Southwest, for example, has Boeing-only fleet. JetBlue has only Airbuses and Embraers. The odds of buying a JetBlue ticket and ending up on a Boeing are fairly low compared to flying Southwest.
        frozenlettuce 7y ago
        Boeing just bought Embraer, but I assume that it will take some time until they the quality of products start to fall
      - tedunangst 7y ago
        I can't recall any plane crashes that also involved a plane switch. So getting bumped to a different plane type and crashing is incalculably rare.
margalabargala 7y ago
A further complicating factor is that quality can be masked from the customer, and indeed will be if that's less expensive than actually improving the quality. And thus no one will actually know that Boeing's planes are of lower quality, until a couple hundred people die.
munificent 7y ago
> because the customer accepts the lower quality. This presumes a perfect market where customers are rational actors with access to a variety of sellers whose product differs only on quality, which consumers have access to accurate information about and the time and expertise to precisely evaluate. Of course the reality is we're just trying to book a flight to get home before Mom's chemo starts and all we know about each airline is the ticket price and how good the peanuts were the last time we flew on them. Airlines are about the last industry on Earth where we should expect laissez-faire capitalism to produce optimal outcomes.
- SftwrSvior81 7y ago
  I wasn't suggesting that the customers could have known beforehand that the Boeing planes had issues that would cause crashes. However, we do know NOW that Boeing planes have quality issues. If customers still willingly get on those planes, then where is the incentive for Boeing to do anything differently? That's really the point I was trying to make. We don't need perfect information to now decide to not fly on Boeing planes. That would send a very strong message to the entire industry that putting profits above customers' lives will be met with very negative consequences such as reduced or loss of profits and possibly the company going out of business.
  - inimino 7y ago
    > where is the incentive Regulation.
rightbyte 7y ago
Unless you are an aerospace engineer or pilot I don't think you can judge the quality of a plane under the surface. I note the leg space and if the plane is noisy or shakes much.
- SftwrSvior81 7y ago
  One doesn't need to be an aerospace engineer to know that Boeing planes crashed because the company leadership decided to forgo quality for the sake of profits. Before the crashes, I agree, there was no reason for customers to expect Boeing planes to be unsafe. However, now that this information has become public, any customer can decide to not fly on their planes.
  - inimino 7y ago
    Is it rational for a customer to not fly on a plane that is as safe as any other just because the same company later made another plane that was less safe? It seems like a lot to ask. In any case, even if 10% of people totally stopped flying on Boeing, which would be a wildly optimistic outcome for any organized consumer action, the airlines would just discount those flights ever so slightly and the other 90% of price-conscious consumers would immediately take up the slack. Nobody's going out of business in that scenario. This is, of course, why we rely on regulation rather than consumer choice to ensure safety, and why this is a failure of regulation, not of the market.
richardwhiuk 7y ago
This also assumes perfect knowledge, which isn't true.
ssalazar 7y ago
Nobody knew the 737 MAX was lower quality until it started falling out of the sky. I think we can agree that an ideal system wouldn't require people to die horrifically in the process of price discovery.
- SftwrSvior81 7y ago
  Absolutely, I 100% agree with this. I wasn't arguing that the current system is anything even close to ideal. I was trying to point out that now that we, the public, have paid this horrendous price, we are still not using the information gained. A company that shows that they will put profit above their customers' lives should be abandoned very quickly by its customers. That isn't happening and the fault for that lies with the customers, IMO.

somurzakov 7y ago

if US allowed foreign airlines to serve domestic routes, that would be the case

EarthIsHome 7y ago

> that happens because the customer accepts the lower quality. What choice do we have? Even if there is a choice, the majority of consumers don't have the luxury of choosing.

SftwrSvior81 7y ago
In my opinion, we all have the choice of not flying on Boeing planes any longer. If a company shows that they are willing to put profits above their customers' lives, then customers should not do business with that company any longer. The customer has to provide an incentive to the company to not do this. Going out of business is a very powerful incentive, I believe. If a company can kill a couple of hundred of its customers and still continue to make money, then why should it do anything differently, especially if the decision that caused the deaths also caused higher profits?

yourMadness 7y ago

Of course the customer accepts the lower quality. Dying once every 10 million flight hours instead of every 1000 million flight hours is a fair price to pay for 10 USD of savings.

jonny_eh 7y ago
If you're talking about airline passengers, they have no choice in which plane they fly in.
- tedunangst 7y ago
  It's not hard to see which planes fly which routes.
  - tirpen 7y ago
    A lot of routes have only one airline though.
  - jen20 7y ago
    It's also not guaranteed which plane will fly which route. Every airline has "substitution" rules in their conditions of carriage, and frequently use them.
    - jonny_eh 7y ago
      Plus, flights get cancelled, and passengers get re-routed last minute.
    - mopsi 7y ago
      Depends on airline. Southwest, for example, has Boeing-only fleet. JetBlue has only Airbuses and Embraers. The odds of buying a JetBlue ticket and ending up on a Boeing are fairly low compared to flying Southwest.
      - frozenlettuce 7y ago
        Boeing just bought Embraer, but I assume that it will take some time until they the quality of products start to fall
    - tedunangst 7y ago
      I can't recall any plane crashes that also involved a plane switch. So getting bumped to a different plane type and crashing is incalculably rare.

margalabargala 7y ago

A further complicating factor is that quality can be masked from the customer, and indeed will be if that's less expensive than actually improving the quality. And thus no one will actually know that Boeing's planes are of lower quality, until a couple hundred people die.

munificent 7y ago

> because the customer accepts the lower quality. This presumes a perfect market where customers are rational actors with access to a variety of sellers whose product differs only on quality, which consumers have access to accurate information about and the time and expertise to precisely evaluate. Of course the reality is we're just trying to book a flight to get home before Mom's chemo starts and all we know about each airline is the ticket price and how good the peanuts were the last time we flew on them. Airlines are about the last industry on Earth where we should expect laissez-faire capitalism to produce optimal outcomes.

SftwrSvior81 7y ago
I wasn't suggesting that the customers could have known beforehand that the Boeing planes had issues that would cause crashes. However, we do know NOW that Boeing planes have quality issues. If customers still willingly get on those planes, then where is the incentive for Boeing to do anything differently? That's really the point I was trying to make. We don't need perfect information to now decide to not fly on Boeing planes. That would send a very strong message to the entire industry that putting profits above customers' lives will be met with very negative consequences such as reduced or loss of profits and possibly the company going out of business.
- inimino 7y ago
  > where is the incentive Regulation.

rightbyte 7y ago

Unless you are an aerospace engineer or pilot I don't think you can judge the quality of a plane under the surface. I note the leg space and if the plane is noisy or shakes much.

SftwrSvior81 7y ago
One doesn't need to be an aerospace engineer to know that Boeing planes crashed because the company leadership decided to forgo quality for the sake of profits. Before the crashes, I agree, there was no reason for customers to expect Boeing planes to be unsafe. However, now that this information has become public, any customer can decide to not fly on their planes.
- inimino 7y ago
  Is it rational for a customer to not fly on a plane that is as safe as any other just because the same company later made another plane that was less safe? It seems like a lot to ask. In any case, even if 10% of people totally stopped flying on Boeing, which would be a wildly optimistic outcome for any organized consumer action, the airlines would just discount those flights ever so slightly and the other 90% of price-conscious consumers would immediately take up the slack. Nobody's going out of business in that scenario. This is, of course, why we rely on regulation rather than consumer choice to ensure safety, and why this is a failure of regulation, not of the market.

richardwhiuk 7y ago

This also assumes perfect knowledge, which isn't true.

ssalazar 7y ago

Nobody knew the 737 MAX was lower quality until it started falling out of the sky. I think we can agree that an ideal system wouldn't require people to die horrifically in the process of price discovery.

SftwrSvior81 7y ago
Absolutely, I 100% agree with this. I wasn't arguing that the current system is anything even close to ideal. I was trying to point out that now that we, the public, have paid this horrendous price, we are still not using the information gained. A company that shows that they will put profit above their customers' lives should be abandoned very quickly by its customers. That isn't happening and the fault for that lies with the customers, IMO.