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Travel just sucks regardless. It feels like solving this problem is harder than putting people on Mars. There are too many bad actors in the system, nothing is

Travel just sucks regardless. It feels like solving this problem is harder than putting people on Mars. There are too many bad actors in the system, nothing is really standardized so customers can't compare or new businesses can't compete 1 to 1. Its all scams at literally every level starting with "travel influencers" > booking sites > transportation to/from airports > the airports themselves > airlines > hotels and finally > the actual activities to do when you arrive. All layers are optimized to scrape as much as they can from your wallet. As a CS person, this unoptimized situation really grinds my gears.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ttymck 3y ago
> optimized to scrape as much as they can from your wallet. What should they be optimized for?
- nebula8804 3y ago
  Competing against each other but because of the lack of 1 to 1 mapping of offerings it is really hard for consumers to differentiate so there isn't real competition.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
scarface_74 3y ago
My wife and I literally travel 7 months of the year flying around to different cities and staying in hotels. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36306966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36306966 It’s not that difficult. I have a primary and secondary airline (Delta and American) and a primary and secondary hotel brand (Hilton and Hyatt). I know the corresponding apps and loyalty programs inside and out. I know what to expect when I travel. When we get to a city or before we go, we search for “top things to do in $City”. Admittedly, this would be a bit harder once we start flying overseas and we will have to do more research. We are starting our second year and the only international travel we have planned right now are mostly within US time zones.
- francisofascii 3y ago
  Paying huge sums for superior brands (Delta, Hilton) is one way to solve travel. It is hard if you are on a budget.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    Hilton sub brands like Homewood Suites and Home2Suites not the main Hilton brand. In the case of Hyatt - Hyatt Place and Hyatt House. Because I need a comfortable working space and for my wife and I not to be on top of each other, we do hotels that are targeted for extended stays. I’ve used the IHG site (Holiday Inn) once or twice. It’s not any worse than the other two. The “cheap” airlines aren’t cheap once you add on fees. Our third choice for flights is JetBlue. We just go to Google Flights to compare prices and then book directly
terr-dav 3y ago
Each separate party is a business trying to optimize for their own bottom-line. You said it yourself, "optimized to scrape as much as they can from your wallet." The system as it exists is a relatively organic outgrowth of the competitive marketplace. Every intervention to make it more consumer-friendly (efficient by another measure) will be gamed & circumvented by the businesses. I don't see a way to optimize it without replacing the system that measures success/survival by personal enrichment above-all.
- nebula8804 3y ago
  Everything you said is true but it is also true for every other industry. Do you not think companies selling computer RAM for example not have the same motivations? How is that industry much less frustration to deal with than what we are discussing here? In my opinion the free market should be able to solve this issue but I think therein lies the problem. There is no 1-to-1 mapping of competitor A offering to competitor B offering and that ambiguity is where the extra is skimmed off. The free market has beaten the RAM industry. They cannot hide behind any ambiguity. RAM stick A has many direct comparisons to RAM stick B. Yes there are still some ambiguity like brand or quality reputation but overall it is very competitive. The market sucks for companies but is great for consumers. Hence we see bankruptcies once in a while when a major error is made (ie. When Windows 8 launched many companies overproduced in anticipation of new PC sales but when OS sales flopped they went bust) If we can solve the issue with lack of clarity of what is being offered then we can build a mapping of competitor A offering to competitor B offering but this is why I say its easier to send people to Mars. How are you going to get that info from each competitor? Lets say you managed to get it through regulation or some other mechanism. Then you have to normalize it across competitors. You can somehow try to break it down to literal things such as room size, does it have item A,B,C and then rate it at a very granular level. But then how to do you evaluate more subjective things like the area the hotel is in?
  - terr-dav 3y ago
    >Everything you said is true but it is also true for every other industry. Do you not think companies selling computer RAM for example not have the same motivations? How is that industry much less frustration to deal with than what we are discussing here? The main difference between RAM sticks and the travel industry is that I don't get to travel around with the electrons in a RAM stick and experience the differences in signal quality and speed, but when traveling, we spend time inhabiting the products we are paying for, and we can feel the differences in quality and speed of our travel experiences. The subtle differences between RAM sticks have real effects on the performance and longevity of a computer system, but are much harder for a human to perceive, so we don't typically don't focus on them. >If we can solve the issue with lack of clarity of what is being offered then we can build a mapping of competitor A offering to competitor B offering but this is why I say its easier to send people to Mars. The bigger idea I was trying to get across is that a competitive market system is not going going to be conducive to solving the problems that arise inside a competitive market system. You already intuitively know this, as you elaborate on, but since this system is as ubiquitous as the very air that we are breathing, it is not so obvious that it could be the root cause of the dysfunction we are talking about.
francisofascii 3y ago
Yeah, travel has a ton variables and risk to make it overwhelming. Trying match to match personal preferences with all the various factors (time of year, flight timing, locations, transportation options, lodging proximity and quality, food options, etc.) takes time and research. You can typically mitigate the difficulty and risk by throwing money at the problem, but most people don't have that luxury, pun intended. It is fun though, when you find budget stay with a great location, or get lucky with great weather or low crowds.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

ttymck 3y ago

> optimized to scrape as much as they can from your wallet. What should they be optimized for?

nebula8804 3y ago
Competing against each other but because of the lack of 1 to 1 mapping of offerings it is really hard for consumers to differentiate so there isn't real competition.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

scarface_74 3y ago

My wife and I literally travel 7 months of the year flying around to different cities and staying in hotels. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36306966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36306966 It’s not that difficult. I have a primary and secondary airline (Delta and American) and a primary and secondary hotel brand (Hilton and Hyatt). I know the corresponding apps and loyalty programs inside and out. I know what to expect when I travel. When we get to a city or before we go, we search for “top things to do in $City”. Admittedly, this would be a bit harder once we start flying overseas and we will have to do more research. We are starting our second year and the only international travel we have planned right now are mostly within US time zones.

francisofascii 3y ago
Paying huge sums for superior brands (Delta, Hilton) is one way to solve travel. It is hard if you are on a budget.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  Hilton sub brands like Homewood Suites and Home2Suites not the main Hilton brand. In the case of Hyatt - Hyatt Place and Hyatt House. Because I need a comfortable working space and for my wife and I not to be on top of each other, we do hotels that are targeted for extended stays. I’ve used the IHG site (Holiday Inn) once or twice. It’s not any worse than the other two. The “cheap” airlines aren’t cheap once you add on fees. Our third choice for flights is JetBlue. We just go to Google Flights to compare prices and then book directly

terr-dav 3y ago

Each separate party is a business trying to optimize for their own bottom-line. You said it yourself, "optimized to scrape as much as they can from your wallet." The system as it exists is a relatively organic outgrowth of the competitive marketplace. Every intervention to make it more consumer-friendly (efficient by another measure) will be gamed & circumvented by the businesses. I don't see a way to optimize it without replacing the system that measures success/survival by personal enrichment above-all.

nebula8804 3y ago
Everything you said is true but it is also true for every other industry. Do you not think companies selling computer RAM for example not have the same motivations? How is that industry much less frustration to deal with than what we are discussing here? In my opinion the free market should be able to solve this issue but I think therein lies the problem. There is no 1-to-1 mapping of competitor A offering to competitor B offering and that ambiguity is where the extra is skimmed off. The free market has beaten the RAM industry. They cannot hide behind any ambiguity. RAM stick A has many direct comparisons to RAM stick B. Yes there are still some ambiguity like brand or quality reputation but overall it is very competitive. The market sucks for companies but is great for consumers. Hence we see bankruptcies once in a while when a major error is made (ie. When Windows 8 launched many companies overproduced in anticipation of new PC sales but when OS sales flopped they went bust) If we can solve the issue with lack of clarity of what is being offered then we can build a mapping of competitor A offering to competitor B offering but this is why I say its easier to send people to Mars. How are you going to get that info from each competitor? Lets say you managed to get it through regulation or some other mechanism. Then you have to normalize it across competitors. You can somehow try to break it down to literal things such as room size, does it have item A,B,C and then rate it at a very granular level. But then how to do you evaluate more subjective things like the area the hotel is in?
- terr-dav 3y ago
  >Everything you said is true but it is also true for every other industry. Do you not think companies selling computer RAM for example not have the same motivations? How is that industry much less frustration to deal with than what we are discussing here? The main difference between RAM sticks and the travel industry is that I don't get to travel around with the electrons in a RAM stick and experience the differences in signal quality and speed, but when traveling, we spend time inhabiting the products we are paying for, and we can feel the differences in quality and speed of our travel experiences. The subtle differences between RAM sticks have real effects on the performance and longevity of a computer system, but are much harder for a human to perceive, so we don't typically don't focus on them. >If we can solve the issue with lack of clarity of what is being offered then we can build a mapping of competitor A offering to competitor B offering but this is why I say its easier to send people to Mars. The bigger idea I was trying to get across is that a competitive market system is not going going to be conducive to solving the problems that arise inside a competitive market system. You already intuitively know this, as you elaborate on, but since this system is as ubiquitous as the very air that we are breathing, it is not so obvious that it could be the root cause of the dysfunction we are talking about.

francisofascii 3y ago

Yeah, travel has a ton variables and risk to make it overwhelming. Trying match to match personal preferences with all the various factors (time of year, flight timing, locations, transportation options, lodging proximity and quality, food options, etc.) takes time and research. You can typically mitigate the difficulty and risk by throwing money at the problem, but most people don't have that luxury, pun intended. It is fun though, when you find budget stay with a great location, or get lucky with great weather or low crowds.