4 ms·

That's terrible news. When middlemen are thriving, everyone else loses. Travel was already horrible after 9/11 and the idiotic anti terrorism rules. The myria

That's terrible news. When middlemen are thriving, everyone else loses. Travel was already horrible after 9/11 and the idiotic anti terrorism rules. The myriad of different covid regulations make traveling ridiculously hard, even for people who are vaccinated, at least in Europe. I was planning a multi countries trip and I gave up after a week of trying to find reliable testing facilities for a good price, matching with flights, matching with Airbnbs. My stomach ulcer started to act up because of the extra stress so I decided to avoid the pain. We'll just book a one way flight, do one stupid test, cross one border, stay in one country and book everything last minute after we know we passed whatever idiotic rules are valid at the moment.

beamatronic 5y ago
Instead of "stomach ulcers", wouldn't you rather consult a professional...travel agent?
- argvargc 5y ago
  I legitimately cannot tell if this is a line from a TV commercial.
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
  My point is that I never needed one before these 1.5 years of collective hysteria and bureaucrats spouting new rules every day.
fragmede 5y ago
No one's forcing you to use a travel agent, but middlemen aren't bad simply for existing. In this case, upon a frothy sea of changing regulations, you can either keep pace with all of the regulations, orrrrrrrr you could pay someone else to do it.
- 1123581321 5y ago
  He’s faulting the regulations for creating a complex situation that requires expertise, not saying no one should pay to navigate them.
  - fragmede 5y ago
    > When middlemen are thriving, everyone else loses. You may be right, but that's the particular phrase I took issue with.
    - 1123581321 5y ago
      That’s fine—hopefully you understand what he meant by it now.
crisdux 5y ago
I agree with you and I find the other comments dismissing you to be completely mind blowing and heartless. We are making society increasingly more difficult to navigate and creating more barriers that imped the movement of people. We are all hurt by these policies and I have not seen sufficient evidence that they do anything to curb the spread of covid now with high transmission rates all over the world. The time for travel restrictions for most of the world has long passed.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Without delving into COVID-related travel restrictions, the very first sentence was about dismissing middlemen in general. There are middlemen who add value and those who... don't. But the idea that I should, for example, be only able to buy a product directly from the manufacturer is not a great idea. Amazon retail and Alibaba and Walmart (among many many others) are middlemen.
  - crisdux 5y ago
    I'm giving the commenter some grace and I do not truly believe they meant all middlemen are bad. I think your interpretation requires you to assume too much intent. And also that claim at face value is preposterous, which is why I don't think they are making that.
  - jokethrowaway 5y ago
    You're right, I could have been more kind to middlemen. I agree there are middlemen who add value. I also think that when middlemen become essentials, it's a sign we are over-regulating society. I have a lot of respect for Amazon in the early days: they really changed the world of online shopping. In the last years, they didn't innovate their e-commerce offering and I attribute a lot of their growth to pure government regulation. The great european VATMOSS (together with GDPR, SCA, cookie banners) killed small independent e-commerces with and pushed the survivors on Amazon, just to avoid the complexity. Let all remember how VATMOSS was supposed to "tax big tech". COVID lockdowns are now killing physical small businesses and Amazon is benefiting from it.
bobbles 5y ago
All the complications you're describing can be helped with having a travel agent... this is literally why you pay someone a commission. The idea that its just a massive waste of money among the tech space is hilarious when people will also make the most minute changes to their workflow to save fractions of a second, but not pay someone $50 to remove hours of headache from a fun event like a holiday.
standardUser 5y ago
I've had no issues doing a bit of pandemic travel around the US and Latin America. It's important to pick your targets wisely, and Europe is not a wise target at this juncture. And contrary to what you're saying, I've gotten some awesome travel deals during the pandemic. I had many months of AirBnBs for 20-30% less than the normal rate.
thatfrenchguy 5y ago
Just be a reasonable person and go to only one country. There’s enough stuff to see in France, Spain or Germany to last you a lifetime.

beamatronic 5y ago

Instead of "stomach ulcers", wouldn't you rather consult a professional...travel agent?

argvargc 5y ago
I legitimately cannot tell if this is a line from a TV commercial.
jokethrowaway 5y ago
My point is that I never needed one before these 1.5 years of collective hysteria and bureaucrats spouting new rules every day.

fragmede 5y ago

No one's forcing you to use a travel agent, but middlemen aren't bad simply for existing. In this case, upon a frothy sea of changing regulations, you can either keep pace with all of the regulations, orrrrrrrr you could pay someone else to do it.

1123581321 5y ago
He’s faulting the regulations for creating a complex situation that requires expertise, not saying no one should pay to navigate them.
- fragmede 5y ago
  > When middlemen are thriving, everyone else loses. You may be right, but that's the particular phrase I took issue with.
  - 1123581321 5y ago
    That’s fine—hopefully you understand what he meant by it now.

crisdux 5y ago

I agree with you and I find the other comments dismissing you to be completely mind blowing and heartless. We are making society increasingly more difficult to navigate and creating more barriers that imped the movement of people. We are all hurt by these policies and I have not seen sufficient evidence that they do anything to curb the spread of covid now with high transmission rates all over the world. The time for travel restrictions for most of the world has long passed.

ghaff 5y ago
Without delving into COVID-related travel restrictions, the very first sentence was about dismissing middlemen in general. There are middlemen who add value and those who... don't. But the idea that I should, for example, be only able to buy a product directly from the manufacturer is not a great idea. Amazon retail and Alibaba and Walmart (among many many others) are middlemen.
- crisdux 5y ago
  I'm giving the commenter some grace and I do not truly believe they meant all middlemen are bad. I think your interpretation requires you to assume too much intent. And also that claim at face value is preposterous, which is why I don't think they are making that.
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
  You're right, I could have been more kind to middlemen. I agree there are middlemen who add value. I also think that when middlemen become essentials, it's a sign we are over-regulating society. I have a lot of respect for Amazon in the early days: they really changed the world of online shopping. In the last years, they didn't innovate their e-commerce offering and I attribute a lot of their growth to pure government regulation. The great european VATMOSS (together with GDPR, SCA, cookie banners) killed small independent e-commerces with and pushed the survivors on Amazon, just to avoid the complexity. Let all remember how VATMOSS was supposed to "tax big tech". COVID lockdowns are now killing physical small businesses and Amazon is benefiting from it.

bobbles 5y ago

All the complications you're describing can be helped with having a travel agent... this is literally why you pay someone a commission. The idea that its just a massive waste of money among the tech space is hilarious when people will also make the most minute changes to their workflow to save fractions of a second, but not pay someone $50 to remove hours of headache from a fun event like a holiday.

standardUser 5y ago

I've had no issues doing a bit of pandemic travel around the US and Latin America. It's important to pick your targets wisely, and Europe is not a wise target at this juncture. And contrary to what you're saying, I've gotten some awesome travel deals during the pandemic. I had many months of AirBnBs for 20-30% less than the normal rate.

thatfrenchguy 5y ago

Just be a reasonable person and go to only one country. There’s enough stuff to see in France, Spain or Germany to last you a lifetime.