4 ms·

> This is only “a failure” if the loss from this is worse than all of the money they have saved over the years by running so lean. Don't forget all of the futu

> This is only “a failure” if the loss from this is worse than all of the money they have saved over the years by running so lean. Don't forget all of the future losses by losing the trust of both the customers and the employees. > it’s that prepping for them costs more than the loss from not being able to absorb them This assumes that they can absorb these losses.

dotancohen 5y ago
> Don't forget all of the future losses by losing the trust of both the customers and the employees. Who's going to remember this? Even a large percentage of the stranded passengers are likely to fly Southwest again to save $36 on a flight. > This assumes that they can absorb these losses. If they couldn't, then they could very very likely receive a bailout or other assistance. It is the existence of these safetynets that allows these businesses to operate so lean. The cynical might say that bailouts encourage the practice.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  > Who's going to remember this? Even a large percentage of the stranded passengers are likely to fly Southwest again to save $36 on a flight. You can see how this is a problem, right? This essentially means the market is not working as it should - instead of improving quality of service, it makes people absorb the bad experience, ad infinitum. The market is not able to deliver feedback to the companies, who instead rely on some degree of "capacity for suck" in their customers, and the fact that there's a new sucker born every minute - by the time they burn out a cohort of their clients, a new population of naive, hopeful people shows up to replace them.
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    > You can see how this is a problem, right? Without a doubt. I am among the cynical.
  - kortilla 5y ago
    “I don’t like what people prefer” is not “the market has failed”. If people want cheap flights, they will keep flying southwest and deal with the occasional problems that come with dancing on a razors edge.
  - cornel_io 5y ago
    I don't think people will be as forgiving of this as GP thinks. I will certainly not book with them for my next N flights unless I hear that they have massively changed their tune.
  - toyg 5y ago
    > This essentially means the market is not working as it should Actually the market works just fine: it transfers price pressures efficiently across all participants - including human beings. It's society that doesn't work anymore, because it has now lost any meaning of 'value' beyond monetary terms for most of the population. Most consumers now cannot choose not to minimize expenditure: either because they cannot afford it, or because they simply don't know how to look at experiences through a lens different from "what is the price".
    - ghaff 5y ago
      >Most consumers now cannot choose not to minimize expenditure: Leaving aside flying private--which is a whole different magnitude of cost--consumers can absolutely choose to pay more to insulate themselves from much of the unpleasantness of flying. Doesn't help much when flights are canceled or delayed of course but you have Pre-Check, airline lounges, business class seating, etc. which do generally improve the experience. But, yes, society in the aggregate does not value the better experience at what it would cost to deliver--certainly not to the point of effectively excluding a significant segment of the population from routine flying but, in the process, making it a more pleasant experience for others.
    - smsm42 5y ago
      Well, some people are OK with getting shitty service once in a while in exchange for drastically lower prices. The thing is, I don't see Southwest prices being drastically lower - I had been checking it for a while when travelling and at least where I go, their price level is no different from their competition - they occasionally have a good deal, but so do the competitors, and their regular prices aren't that different otherwise in my experience. Maybe statistically it's not true but anecdotally for me I'm not sure there's even minimizing expenditure that much...
  - Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
    You're underestimating the price sensitivity of many consumers. It's the market working exactly as intended.

dotancohen 5y ago

> Don't forget all of the future losses by losing the trust of both the customers and the employees. Who's going to remember this? Even a large percentage of the stranded passengers are likely to fly Southwest again to save $36 on a flight. > This assumes that they can absorb these losses. If they couldn't, then they could very very likely receive a bailout or other assistance. It is the existence of these safetynets that allows these businesses to operate so lean. The cynical might say that bailouts encourage the practice.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
> Who's going to remember this? Even a large percentage of the stranded passengers are likely to fly Southwest again to save $36 on a flight. You can see how this is a problem, right? This essentially means the market is not working as it should - instead of improving quality of service, it makes people absorb the bad experience, ad infinitum. The market is not able to deliver feedback to the companies, who instead rely on some degree of "capacity for suck" in their customers, and the fact that there's a new sucker born every minute - by the time they burn out a cohort of their clients, a new population of naive, hopeful people shows up to replace them.
- dotancohen 5y ago
  > You can see how this is a problem, right? Without a doubt. I am among the cynical.
- kortilla 5y ago
  “I don’t like what people prefer” is not “the market has failed”. If people want cheap flights, they will keep flying southwest and deal with the occasional problems that come with dancing on a razors edge.
- cornel_io 5y ago
  I don't think people will be as forgiving of this as GP thinks. I will certainly not book with them for my next N flights unless I hear that they have massively changed their tune.
- toyg 5y ago
  > This essentially means the market is not working as it should Actually the market works just fine: it transfers price pressures efficiently across all participants - including human beings. It's society that doesn't work anymore, because it has now lost any meaning of 'value' beyond monetary terms for most of the population. Most consumers now cannot choose not to minimize expenditure: either because they cannot afford it, or because they simply don't know how to look at experiences through a lens different from "what is the price".
  - ghaff 5y ago
    >Most consumers now cannot choose not to minimize expenditure: Leaving aside flying private--which is a whole different magnitude of cost--consumers can absolutely choose to pay more to insulate themselves from much of the unpleasantness of flying. Doesn't help much when flights are canceled or delayed of course but you have Pre-Check, airline lounges, business class seating, etc. which do generally improve the experience. But, yes, society in the aggregate does not value the better experience at what it would cost to deliver--certainly not to the point of effectively excluding a significant segment of the population from routine flying but, in the process, making it a more pleasant experience for others.
  - smsm42 5y ago
    Well, some people are OK with getting shitty service once in a while in exchange for drastically lower prices. The thing is, I don't see Southwest prices being drastically lower - I had been checking it for a while when travelling and at least where I go, their price level is no different from their competition - they occasionally have a good deal, but so do the competitors, and their regular prices aren't that different otherwise in my experience. Maybe statistically it's not true but anecdotally for me I'm not sure there's even minimizing expenditure that much...
- Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
  You're underestimating the price sensitivity of many consumers. It's the market working exactly as intended.