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It appears that taking advantage of human imperfections and irrationality are taking up more and more of companies' strategies and time. You've got folks think

It appears that taking advantage of human imperfections and irrationality are taking up more and more of companies' strategies and time. You've got folks thinking constantly about advertising, pricing strategies, dark patterns, network effects that prevent or discourage churn, etc., in ways that tend to exploit flaws in the consumer's decisioning process or gaps in their knowledge, to the consumer's disadvantage. It feels rare to see an actual new valuable product or improvement.

bix6 1y ago
Spot on. Surfline gave us a bunch of new features over the past year but you have to pay more for them. Gone are the days of delighting your customers — gotta take every penny you can from each market segment.
bluGill 1y ago
You can find people back in 1880 (probably before, but that is as old as I've seen something) saying much the same thing. Yet we have had a lot of innovation since then.
- Frieren 1y ago
  * citation needed
- jjk166 1y ago
  People were saying that in the 1880s, which was the gilded age. People took action at the time to deal with the problem, and it was significantly reduced for many decades. Just because an issue existed long ago does not mean it has continuously existed or is intractable.
slg 1y ago
I think the biggest change in general corporate management in my lifetime was the deprioritizing of the concept of goodwill. I’m not naive, businesses have always prioritized profit. However, there used to be this idea that pure profit maximization ruined your brand and reputation. You didn’t want to be known as the asshole company that nickel and dimes everyone or has draconian policies that make people hate dealing with you. Now the corporate mindset is seemingly that if anyone leaves any interaction with you with any positive feelings, you didn’t squeeze enough money out of them.
- cosmic_cheese 1y ago
  It may just be a misperception on my part, but it appears to me that on average publicly traded companies are more likely to engage in this behavior and to greater extents than private companies. Startups can be pretty bad about it once the VCs come knocking, too. Maybe bootstrapped and private forever is the way.
  - amonroe805-2 1y ago
    Broadly agree, with the one caveat that private-equity-owned businesses seem to be even worse than public companies in this regard.
    - Analemma_ 1y ago
      I agree, although there’s a lot of selection bias at work here: companies usually don’t get bought by private equity unless they’re already in distress, so whatever they were doing before the acquisition clearly wasn’t working.
      - fn-mote 1y ago
        C.f. Private equity entrance to the veterinary market. Were they all really distressed? The issue is valuation of company vs underlying assets, isn’t it? Distress is one way, but a solid company not squeezing all of the value out of its customers / capital is another.
- robbiewxyz 1y ago
  My gut is this comes down to lack of real antitrust enforcement. If your customers have no choice but to come crawling back to you then why treat them well?
  - quantified 1y ago
    As in, it doesn't matter that you're "an" asshole. It would matter if you were "the" asshole, but all of you together can do what you want.
supertrope 1y ago
I have no love lost for airlines but they operate in a commoditized industry where customers sort tickets by price. All of the fat in the industry has been squeezed out and they have to claw for $20 here and there on a sale.
- dkjaudyeqooe 1y ago
  > All of the fat in the industry has been squeezed out I don't know where you live but in the US this is patently not true. Airlines are an abusive oligopoly there, with landing slots and the like cementing control of certain markets for certain airlines. Ticket prices are much higher than they used to be and are much higher than Europe (for instance).
  - nickff 1y ago
    The airline industry is famously unprofitable; it is commonly said that on net, the sum total of airlines have made $0 over the course of their history. It is true that there are periods where they do make a profit, but these periods are offset by times when they make massive losses (such as during COVID, after the Great Recession, and after 9/11).
    - dkjaudyeqooe 1y ago
      Globally, big airlines seem to be doing fine: https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/most-profitable-airlines https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/most-profitable-airlines I think there are lots of airlines that are propped up by governments that lose money leading to the meme you're quoting. Many industries were affected by the events you quoted, those sorts of things aren't specific to airlines.
      - nickff 1y ago
        There are two issues with doing a static analysis on something like this: 1) Survivorship Bias: you are only looking at airlines that currently exist, and ignoring ones that have gone out of business. 2) Recency Bias: you're examining them at a time of relative prosperity and stability, ignoring their pasts.
carlosjobim 1y ago
When you have A) a customer who isn't looking for a bargain, and B) a seller who cares about their reputation – then doing business is a pleasure for both parties and very smooth. If you're the seller, then it's easy to filter out customers who don't fit into category A, with pricing. For the customer it's harder to filter out sellers who don't fit into category B, but generally you won't find them if you're looking for a bargain.
cma 1y ago
Looking at the S&P500 about 30-40% of us equities value is based on selling customers data back to them or advertising on it, and establishing network effect stuff like developer ecosystems or marketplaces (Amazon) where a majority of the value comes from the outside ecosystem. I'm counting some of nvidia in that as the profitability others get of selling back transformed free data is a big part of enabling their margin.
meta_ai_x 1y ago
Having to pay for your bags and meals are actually good for consumers and overall environment. If passengers are forced to pack lightly because they have to pay extra fees is actually a win-win-win for everyone. Plus it is less discriminatory because my airfare is not subsidizing someone else abuse of the system. Same goes with food. I want the option to not pay for the shitty airline food.
- pete762 1y ago
  The daily and seemingly random price fluctuations of tickets are much larger than the cost of meals you'd save, basically noise.
  - robocat 1y ago
    The "noise" is very likely intentional. A common way to price discriminate is to make the cheaper options take time and effort to obtain. People with less money will put in more time and effort e.g. price comparison, looking for discounts (codes or whatever), taking a few days to check prices, willing to move travel dates/times to get a cheaper price. Those with more money pay more and value their time/effort more highly. Flight prices are not random - they are highly optimised (even using genetic A/B price generation algorithms that the airlines themselves might not fully be able to predict). PS: Avoid LATAM Airlines Chile - dark pattern on website - those bastards increased the price while I was entering the credit card to pay (a popup - was ~2% but a dirty trick - maybe discrimination after detecting card owner credit details?).
m3kw9 1y ago
You got economy or business class, you really don’t have much choice

bix6 1y ago

Spot on. Surfline gave us a bunch of new features over the past year but you have to pay more for them. Gone are the days of delighting your customers — gotta take every penny you can from each market segment.

bluGill 1y ago

You can find people back in 1880 (probably before, but that is as old as I've seen something) saying much the same thing. Yet we have had a lot of innovation since then.

Frieren 1y ago
* citation needed
jjk166 1y ago
People were saying that in the 1880s, which was the gilded age. People took action at the time to deal with the problem, and it was significantly reduced for many decades. Just because an issue existed long ago does not mean it has continuously existed or is intractable.

slg 1y ago

I think the biggest change in general corporate management in my lifetime was the deprioritizing of the concept of goodwill. I’m not naive, businesses have always prioritized profit. However, there used to be this idea that pure profit maximization ruined your brand and reputation. You didn’t want to be known as the asshole company that nickel and dimes everyone or has draconian policies that make people hate dealing with you. Now the corporate mindset is seemingly that if anyone leaves any interaction with you with any positive feelings, you didn’t squeeze enough money out of them.

cosmic_cheese 1y ago
It may just be a misperception on my part, but it appears to me that on average publicly traded companies are more likely to engage in this behavior and to greater extents than private companies. Startups can be pretty bad about it once the VCs come knocking, too. Maybe bootstrapped and private forever is the way.
- amonroe805-2 1y ago
  Broadly agree, with the one caveat that private-equity-owned businesses seem to be even worse than public companies in this regard.
  - Analemma_ 1y ago
    I agree, although there’s a lot of selection bias at work here: companies usually don’t get bought by private equity unless they’re already in distress, so whatever they were doing before the acquisition clearly wasn’t working.
    - fn-mote 1y ago
      C.f. Private equity entrance to the veterinary market. Were they all really distressed? The issue is valuation of company vs underlying assets, isn’t it? Distress is one way, but a solid company not squeezing all of the value out of its customers / capital is another.
robbiewxyz 1y ago
My gut is this comes down to lack of real antitrust enforcement. If your customers have no choice but to come crawling back to you then why treat them well?
- quantified 1y ago
  As in, it doesn't matter that you're "an" asshole. It would matter if you were "the" asshole, but all of you together can do what you want.

supertrope 1y ago

I have no love lost for airlines but they operate in a commoditized industry where customers sort tickets by price. All of the fat in the industry has been squeezed out and they have to claw for $20 here and there on a sale.

dkjaudyeqooe 1y ago
> All of the fat in the industry has been squeezed out I don't know where you live but in the US this is patently not true. Airlines are an abusive oligopoly there, with landing slots and the like cementing control of certain markets for certain airlines. Ticket prices are much higher than they used to be and are much higher than Europe (for instance).
- nickff 1y ago
  The airline industry is famously unprofitable; it is commonly said that on net, the sum total of airlines have made $0 over the course of their history. It is true that there are periods where they do make a profit, but these periods are offset by times when they make massive losses (such as during COVID, after the Great Recession, and after 9/11).
  - dkjaudyeqooe 1y ago
    Globally, big airlines seem to be doing fine: https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/most-profitable-airlines https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/most-profitable-airlines I think there are lots of airlines that are propped up by governments that lose money leading to the meme you're quoting. Many industries were affected by the events you quoted, those sorts of things aren't specific to airlines.
    - nickff 1y ago
      There are two issues with doing a static analysis on something like this: 1) Survivorship Bias: you are only looking at airlines that currently exist, and ignoring ones that have gone out of business. 2) Recency Bias: you're examining them at a time of relative prosperity and stability, ignoring their pasts.

carlosjobim 1y ago

When you have A) a customer who isn't looking for a bargain, and B) a seller who cares about their reputation – then doing business is a pleasure for both parties and very smooth. If you're the seller, then it's easy to filter out customers who don't fit into category A, with pricing. For the customer it's harder to filter out sellers who don't fit into category B, but generally you won't find them if you're looking for a bargain.

cma 1y ago

Looking at the S&P500 about 30-40% of us equities value is based on selling customers data back to them or advertising on it, and establishing network effect stuff like developer ecosystems or marketplaces (Amazon) where a majority of the value comes from the outside ecosystem. I'm counting some of nvidia in that as the profitability others get of selling back transformed free data is a big part of enabling their margin.

meta_ai_x 1y ago

Having to pay for your bags and meals are actually good for consumers and overall environment. If passengers are forced to pack lightly because they have to pay extra fees is actually a win-win-win for everyone. Plus it is less discriminatory because my airfare is not subsidizing someone else abuse of the system. Same goes with food. I want the option to not pay for the shitty airline food.

pete762 1y ago
The daily and seemingly random price fluctuations of tickets are much larger than the cost of meals you'd save, basically noise.
- robocat 1y ago
  The "noise" is very likely intentional. A common way to price discriminate is to make the cheaper options take time and effort to obtain. People with less money will put in more time and effort e.g. price comparison, looking for discounts (codes or whatever), taking a few days to check prices, willing to move travel dates/times to get a cheaper price. Those with more money pay more and value their time/effort more highly. Flight prices are not random - they are highly optimised (even using genetic A/B price generation algorithms that the airlines themselves might not fully be able to predict). PS: Avoid LATAM Airlines Chile - dark pattern on website - those bastards increased the price while I was entering the credit card to pay (a popup - was ~2% but a dirty trick - maybe discrimination after detecting card owner credit details?).

m3kw9 1y ago

You got economy or business class, you really don’t have much choice