On the dog point it's because Americans aren't good with rules like "dogs off leash only if they don't cause a problem" so everywhere is technically a leashes only place. When I go to the park near my house -- usually like 2am or 8am -- and absolutely no one is there I'm going to use it to throw some balls for my dog so he can get some exercise. If I actually followed the posted rules I would need to own a car and drive 25m each day to give my dog a reasonable amount of exercise (being on a leash isn't really enough). My city doesn't even have public dog transit so it's not an option.
And yes, over the several years I've had dogs at this address 4-5 times they have run over and tried to say hello to someone I didn't see and I'm always apologetic and based on how everyone behaves (I'm far from the only one who does this) this is a pretty good compromise for everyone.
Of course if they actually said "dogs allowed off leash if they don't cause a problem" the American attitude would mean someone with a giant dog scaring kids and adults would refuse to leash it because it's not causing a problem they are.
Ultimately, the problem is that living together in high density areas requires compromise and Americans are a pretty pugnacious bunch. We solve this problem by having unenforced rules like "all dogs on a leash" which people interpret as make sure your dog isn't causing trouble.
It's imperfect because then we can't also designate some places as really no dogs off leash but I don't see how else to make these things work. We aren't conformist enough to pressure people into complying when a rule requires interpretation and we aren't comfortable giving our government officials that much discretion.
That's why the American way is "it's illegal but stay in these bounds" it's how we do weed, dogs, driving on the highway and gambling.
Man, if I wasn't running late for work (common occurence when SB mailbag drops, damn you Matt!) I'd have a long response to write a la So Let Me Tell You About <s>Service Animal</s> Dog Owners In Grocery Stores. You guys wouldn't believe the nonsense we have to put up with, of Reasonable Middle-Class People throwing tantrums when we ask them to follow the law in San Francisco, California...which is that pets of any kind are not allowed in grocery stores, unless they are service animals. It's literally illegal, folks! Health code violation! "Blimey, guv'na, you couldn't main may?", says the doe-eyed dog pamperer with a Chihuahua riding inside the shopping cart, nested among their produce.
The funny thing is, if we charged $10 for "premium shopper pet indulgences" to look the other way, this would be both economically efficient by pricing the externality, and also I think pretty much everyone would call it out as heartlessly grubby or whatever, laws aside. Markets are great, but I genuinely think a world of optimized microtransactions for everything is not, and I'll chalk Matt dodging David's question down to the flu rather than simply not wanting to answer the substance. Cognitive load is a real cost - sometimes, Choices Are Bad.
Just want to add something about the dog question. We are big dog people, have had dogs our whole lives, have fostered and adopted out many dogs.
And people letting their dogs off leash in leash-only areas is a huge problem for anyone else with a dog. It makes it difficult or impossible to enjoy the same space with your on-leash dog if it’s full of off-leash dogs. Many dogs even if they are otherwise perfectly sociable will become reactive when in a situation where they are leashed and other dogs are not. There’s a reason why off-leash dog parks are a distinct place!
The answer on Trump and Greenland is a good one and if we extrapolate, it leads to an interesting/disturbing conclusion regarding our timeline
- Trump has systematically moved through life by scamming/stiffing different people at different times
- He always managed to avoid his bad reputation with a previous scamee from affecting opportunities with his next target
- The scale and sophistication of his targets steadily grew from small contractors to banks before politics.
- Now finally as POTUS he is targeting entire countries at a global scale
- If Trump's scams are to continue, there is no one left on earth who is an unsuspecting/willing mark
- Given how lucky Trump has been (Hillary, Ruth-Bader Ginsburg, Aileen Cannon, bullet missing, Biden+Kamala etc) , "Trump gets to scam" seems like a law of nature
- Since there is no one left on earth to scam however, the next logical targets are spacefaring aliens
We should slightly increase our credence therefore that in our cursed timeline, spacefaring aliens exist just so that they can be scammed by Trump.
This may be a hot take depending on dog-ownership levels in the Slow Boring community, but I think off-leash dogs amongst otherwise-rule-abiding citizens are a pretty clear supply-demand problem. The demand for spaces to let your dogs off leash is high, and the supply of such spaces is very small in most areas.
I live in Denver, a city with probably one of the highest dog-ownership rates in the US. There is only one (very small) dog park within a 20 minute drive of me (and I live in a popular walkable area); meanwhile, there are multiple parks within 1 mile that have big empty fields that are basically unused by anyone other than dog owners. I think cities need to take a look at how parks are actually being utilized, who uses them, and probably convert some existing park space to dog parks (I'm talking a fence and some poop bags here, not like obstacle courses).
I don't actually currently have a dog (soon though!) so I should once I do. I've had very limited success talking to city council here (about other stuff) unfortunately - some reps are great and others never return calls or emails at all.
Too many comments, but an aside on yield management as an example:
Airfares (and other transportation modes) could become price-deregulated only in the late 20th century, because before the computer era it took days to buy a ticket.
A late-19th and early-20th century passenger or shipper would have to visit a company-specific ticket office, wait days for the company to internally verify fares and space availability with their central office and connecting companies, then the passenger would have to return to the ticket office to pay for and collect their hand-written ticket, if available.
Dynamic fares weren’t technologically viable (or would be horribly arbitrary and error-prone) until the mainframe and computer era. Fixed fares, published in advance were the only viable way to allow competition with any sort of consumer protection.
I was reading a British writer's travelogue on visiting India in the 90s, and the first thing he did after getting off the plane was go to the train station, stand in an hours-long line, and buy all six train tickets he would need for his trip. And for each ticket the teller would have to call in to make sure they had availability on the train from Delhi to Jaipur on the 28th, or whatever. Crazy to think it wasn't even that long ago.
Here's my actual, non-trolling, thought out take on dogs.
People who see a gray area where letting your dog off leash in a wide open space might be worth it understand animals as having some form of right to a good life.
Matt uses the example of driving as a metaphor. The baseline thing about driving is that as a society, we have decided that hurtling around in two-ton metal weapons that regularly kill thousands of people every year is worth the benefits of faster travel. His argument about particular speeds exist at the margin. Going 40mph in a residential 25mph zone is bad, but if we're being honest, the average flow of travel in these zones seems to be between 27 and 33mph.
Similarly, we've decided as a society that benefits of joy and companionship that animals provide is worth the minimal risk of accidents. As a matter of fact, way fewer people are injured by dogs than cars every year.
I see having your dog off leash in certain contexts as driving between 27-33mph in a 25mph zone. 33 is pushing. 27 is well within the bounds of "considerate".
I don't have a strong take on what dog leashing rules should be, so I'll just banally say that it's reasonable to have time, place, and manner restrictions in both directions, depending on the level of possible harm. What the details of that would be, I'll let others with stronger takes duke that out in the comments.
Some not very good/poor answers from Matt regarding business practices.
He is lumping in predatory practices by quasi monopolies with "business dynamism".
The good form of "Business dynamism" is when it easy for players to enter and exit the production process. Think many firms competing to drive margins to zero. But that is not what is happening in the USA.
In most sectors we have only a few players (per geography or economic strata), because of economies of scale. These few players are able to sustain high profit margins (see stock performance) over many many years because barriers to entry are high and capital chases high profit margins. Some of the high stock valuation is genuine new innovation but a lot of it is "innovation" of ways to nickel and dime customers.
The idea that in this scenario, the quasi monopolists extracting rents by hidden costs and frictions is "business dynamism" is a laughably bad take.
Regulation is not just about externalities, it also has a place when economies of scale reduce the number of feasible players in any sector to very few.
Companies should only be able to set prices when
- Demand is elastic
- There is genuine choice in the market place (like for varieties of cereal or something)
Matt’s answer on the inefficiency of fixed pricing illustrates why nobody!likes or trusts economists. In theory, his answer is correct. In practice, people know this makes their lives less important enjoyable while the efficiency benefits accrue to other people.
Efficiency is a good thing, but not the only good thing. As the OP questioner stated, there is a significant cost to the consumer for these systems that guarantee a political backlash
I value economists, but Matt has certain areas where he really doesn’t grasp the psychology of consumers and the value of non-monetary things. Like a world where only rich people and fans who save for years to see a favorite artist is a pretty cultural bleak place. His Europe answer also demonstrates his belief that larger is always better without engaging in the costs and benefits of large companies and billionaires
I think he grasps it but he likes to push against what is the received wisdom in left of center spaces, which can be good, bad, or annoying. I think it's useful when a lot of progressives push regulation as the answer to everything and don't consider the concept of tradeoffs or drawbacks (whereas many conservatives don't consider the downsides of a purely market approach).
As to the concerts, I think it's a tricky issue because no one is going to be fully satisfied since the supply does not meet the demand for certain artists. And then you have to ask is it possible or desirable for the government to intervene in this and if so what it should look like. But I don't really know what the right answer is.
The only government I’d want for concerts is ensuring people see the real price and help regulate second markets. Fans should have a real chance at the ticket lottery.
To me, one of the most egregious abuses of the modern economy is how often actual pricing is obscured. I wish companies had to show the final price with all fees and taxes up front. If it says $10, you pay exactly $10. Now, it might be $6 with a secret code, or $20 after all the fees are added in. It’s almost impossible to know how much things will cost before you get to check out. It’s very consumer hostile
This is of a different nature, but a checkout prompt that annoys me are the pleading for donations. If you want to be charitable, just pull a Paul Newman and say you'll donate some of your profit instead!
I think that ad supports point. I pulled my numbers from Google and they seem to track fairly well if a bit high. But my today prices are also high. Best buy app currently has printers available for $50 at the low end while the all in one from ypur 1998 ad is ~$1000 in today's dollars with simpler ones down around $400. That tracks pretty close to the price ratio from my original comment.
Whether the consumer today has a better experience than back then isn't really the thing to compare for pricing models. The comparison is what the printer would cost today and whether it would still exist in today's market. That advert was pushing the idea of printing out your pictures but that isn't a thing normies do today. Would a sufficient market exist for $400-$1000 home printers exist today? My argument is that it wouldn't. The current pricing scheme is frustrating but its functional in a way that the 1990s model would not be in the modern context.
the european regulation question is wild. Like, dude, European regulation is literally the reason for enshittification of so many things.
Why, for years, was it so fucking hard to get a DVD player that worked on Windows? European regulation.
Why do I have to click a super annoying banner on every website, even random ones that clearly are not going to invade my privacy? European regulation
This is to say nothing of the many inconveniences/enshittification that is local to Europe. Like that, in Germany, it's pretty normal to go to a bar and order "a beer" because the bar does, in fact, only serve one brand of beer! Sure, it is more convenient to you in the sense that you don't actually have to spend any mental capacity on whether you like Augustiner more than you like Löwenbräu, but is that really to your benefit? Come on, now.
Then you get equally stupid solutions like mandating USB-C charges on everything like they did in India. Which I am sure in 5-10 years is going to be FANTASTIC for innovation.
And apple's chargers weren't exclusive. The specification, yes, the equipment, no. You could buy a $5 third party lightning cable that worked as well as the $20 one that Apple sold you.
The ideal solution would have been for some sort of licensing agreement where Lightning becomes the standard. The Lightning plug is over a millimeter narrower than USB-C, where in consumer electronics thinness carries a massive premium. I am so bummed that we ended up with the worse solution because of regulation.
Lightning doesn't get as mating cycles before the connector wears out and since it has fewer terminals than USB-C it could never be as fast, so it's not like it's superior.
I get the point about speeding: creating danger, not seeing yourself as doing anything wrong. But I’m curious what Matt thinks about the inverse case: people who drive below the limit under normal weather and traffic conditions.
I mean going 26 in a 35 on a weekday morning with a line of cars stacked behind you. If someone has a reason to go slow (car trouble, etc.), that’s totally fine. But far too many people do it just because...
I think that behavior is disrespectful to others, induces frustration, and actually causes a lot of people to speed the moment the slowpoke finally gets out of the way.
There absolutely needs to be a minimum speed limit on controlled access freeways. They're at their safest when everyone is going within about the same speed as everyone else.
Also, slow vehicles on curvy 2 lane rural highways with no passing opportunities need to pull over frequently when they're delaying other drivers. Especially the RVs, they're always the absolute worst at this.
Matt's completely overstating the value of crap like surprise "convenience fees" at checkout and cancellation labyrinths for cable services to claim that that kind of nonsense is necessary for GDP growth!
Interesting that price discrimination came up, because Southwest is moving to that model this month, I believe - and I absolutely hate it, as do a lot of other regular clients, because the marketing around it reeks of dishonesty. You'd think, with dynamic pricing, the cramped middle seat would cost less, but no, now it's just the baseline and every other seat is "luxury extra legroom" and cost $70 more. Notably, it's also been paired with the rollout of several other obnoxious policies from Southwest, including reducing the length of time your flight credits last and reducing the value of loyalty points, which I think is an underrated element of this. Most businesses practicing junk fee stuff are also engaged in other annoying and duplicitous practices that make the consumer feel exploited, like pricing that changes based on what browser you're using, surprise fees at checkout, exclusions in the fine print, additional charges for things that seem like they should be included, difficulty canceling services, so on, so on, so that while the price discrimination itself may be more efficient and even fair, overall it sours the consumer on the whole enterprise. There's a reason people call it Ticketbastard.
The only people who cared about Jetway Jesus that much were people who basically lived on Reddit. I flew 2-3x a week for three years and saw a big line of preboarders maybe three times. Prior to the changes they were actually a profitable airline, so we'll see how they do after all these changes.
I wonder if this was geography specific. My work exclusively provided SW flight until last year for work travel and in 2024 every flight was comical for me. Easily >50% of those flights were preboarders. Last year was all AA which was surprisingly good though.
The efficiency gains are entirely internalized for the service provider, never the consumer. We have rapidly moved from disruptive companies who offer technology or services that can make lives easier (the early incarnations of things like Uber, Amazon, etc.) to companies who have completed their disruption, and are now trying to drain every last drop of money from existing customers by hook or by crook, while also making unavoidable, everyday activities more difficult and aggravating (again, Uber, Amazon, etc.).
And by things like surge pricing, etc. leaking down into all sorts of ticking/transactions (not just particularly high demand/high salience things like a Taylor Swift concert or reservations at a pricey restaurant) you provide opportunities for people with enough money to improve their experience (while increasing revenue from high earners for the service provider), while simultaneously making the experience shittier for everyone who cannot throw money at these things.
“ The question of whether Republicans would have — or ever will in our current timeline — come to the view that there is something wrong with Trump as a person, even if you are in broad alignment with him on the issues, is important and interesting.”
I’m a republican who fits this to a tee. And I know a lot of people who are in the same boat. In short, this has always been the case on the republican side with a substantial minority of Trump supporters.
I remember when Trump was inaugurated in 2017. Around that time he was asked about Putin and he said something along the lines of, “I like Putin. He says nice things about me.” I was stunned by that, and I’ve viewed Trump through the lens of that statement ever since. An extremely strange man with a powerful mix of toxic narcissism, self-confidence, and a feral perspicacity.
I suspect part of the unleashed dogs where they’re not supposed to be unleashed and dogs in places they aren’t supposed to be is partly due to people who were never dog owners before getting dogs during the pandemic. Inexperienced dog owners aren’t as likely to understand why a dog needs to be leashed, or that an untrained dog is not a happy dog.
I also suspect that people ended up with dogs that were unsuitable for their lifestyle because there was a strong demand for dogs and most people think you should go to the shelter so the dogs that were available weren’t the ones best suited for beginners.
Throw in the emotional support animal phenomenon, which has wrongly convinced people that they can bring their ESA into places where dogs are forbidden, and you have people comfortable bringing dos where they shouldn’t be
On the dog point it's because Americans aren't good with rules like "dogs off leash only if they don't cause a problem" so everywhere is technically a leashes only place. When I go to the park near my house -- usually like 2am or 8am -- and absolutely no one is there I'm going to use it to throw some balls for my dog so he can get some exercise. If I actually followed the posted rules I would need to own a car and drive 25m each day to give my dog a reasonable amount of exercise (being on a leash isn't really enough). My city doesn't even have public dog transit so it's not an option.
And yes, over the several years I've had dogs at this address 4-5 times they have run over and tried to say hello to someone I didn't see and I'm always apologetic and based on how everyone behaves (I'm far from the only one who does this) this is a pretty good compromise for everyone.
Of course if they actually said "dogs allowed off leash if they don't cause a problem" the American attitude would mean someone with a giant dog scaring kids and adults would refuse to leash it because it's not causing a problem they are.
Ultimately, the problem is that living together in high density areas requires compromise and Americans are a pretty pugnacious bunch. We solve this problem by having unenforced rules like "all dogs on a leash" which people interpret as make sure your dog isn't causing trouble.
It's imperfect because then we can't also designate some places as really no dogs off leash but I don't see how else to make these things work. We aren't conformist enough to pressure people into complying when a rule requires interpretation and we aren't comfortable giving our government officials that much discretion.
That's why the American way is "it's illegal but stay in these bounds" it's how we do weed, dogs, driving on the highway and gambling.
I used to see the dog thing everyday.
Man, if I wasn't running late for work (common occurence when SB mailbag drops, damn you Matt!) I'd have a long response to write a la So Let Me Tell You About <s>Service Animal</s> Dog Owners In Grocery Stores. You guys wouldn't believe the nonsense we have to put up with, of Reasonable Middle-Class People throwing tantrums when we ask them to follow the law in San Francisco, California...which is that pets of any kind are not allowed in grocery stores, unless they are service animals. It's literally illegal, folks! Health code violation! "Blimey, guv'na, you couldn't main may?", says the doe-eyed dog pamperer with a Chihuahua riding inside the shopping cart, nested among their produce.
The funny thing is, if we charged $10 for "premium shopper pet indulgences" to look the other way, this would be both economically efficient by pricing the externality, and also I think pretty much everyone would call it out as heartlessly grubby or whatever, laws aside. Markets are great, but I genuinely think a world of optimized microtransactions for everything is not, and I'll chalk Matt dodging David's question down to the flu rather than simply not wanting to answer the substance. Cognitive load is a real cost - sometimes, Choices Are Bad.
Just want to add something about the dog question. We are big dog people, have had dogs our whole lives, have fostered and adopted out many dogs.
And people letting their dogs off leash in leash-only areas is a huge problem for anyone else with a dog. It makes it difficult or impossible to enjoy the same space with your on-leash dog if it’s full of off-leash dogs. Many dogs even if they are otherwise perfectly sociable will become reactive when in a situation where they are leashed and other dogs are not. There’s a reason why off-leash dog parks are a distinct place!
The answer on Trump and Greenland is a good one and if we extrapolate, it leads to an interesting/disturbing conclusion regarding our timeline
- Trump has systematically moved through life by scamming/stiffing different people at different times
- He always managed to avoid his bad reputation with a previous scamee from affecting opportunities with his next target
- The scale and sophistication of his targets steadily grew from small contractors to banks before politics.
- Now finally as POTUS he is targeting entire countries at a global scale
- If Trump's scams are to continue, there is no one left on earth who is an unsuspecting/willing mark
- Given how lucky Trump has been (Hillary, Ruth-Bader Ginsburg, Aileen Cannon, bullet missing, Biden+Kamala etc) , "Trump gets to scam" seems like a law of nature
- Since there is no one left on earth to scam however, the next logical targets are spacefaring aliens
We should slightly increase our credence therefore that in our cursed timeline, spacefaring aliens exist just so that they can be scammed by Trump.
This may be a hot take depending on dog-ownership levels in the Slow Boring community, but I think off-leash dogs amongst otherwise-rule-abiding citizens are a pretty clear supply-demand problem. The demand for spaces to let your dogs off leash is high, and the supply of such spaces is very small in most areas.
I live in Denver, a city with probably one of the highest dog-ownership rates in the US. There is only one (very small) dog park within a 20 minute drive of me (and I live in a popular walkable area); meanwhile, there are multiple parks within 1 mile that have big empty fields that are basically unused by anyone other than dog owners. I think cities need to take a look at how parks are actually being utilized, who uses them, and probably convert some existing park space to dog parks (I'm talking a fence and some poop bags here, not like obstacle courses).
Have you tried going to city council with this? It seems like a very reasonable proposal, and dog park infrastructure seems inexpensive.
I don't actually currently have a dog (soon though!) so I should once I do. I've had very limited success talking to city council here (about other stuff) unfortunately - some reps are great and others never return calls or emails at all.
Too many comments, but an aside on yield management as an example:
Airfares (and other transportation modes) could become price-deregulated only in the late 20th century, because before the computer era it took days to buy a ticket.
A late-19th and early-20th century passenger or shipper would have to visit a company-specific ticket office, wait days for the company to internally verify fares and space availability with their central office and connecting companies, then the passenger would have to return to the ticket office to pay for and collect their hand-written ticket, if available.
Dynamic fares weren’t technologically viable (or would be horribly arbitrary and error-prone) until the mainframe and computer era. Fixed fares, published in advance were the only viable way to allow competition with any sort of consumer protection.
I was reading a British writer's travelogue on visiting India in the 90s, and the first thing he did after getting off the plane was go to the train station, stand in an hours-long line, and buy all six train tickets he would need for his trip. And for each ticket the teller would have to call in to make sure they had availability on the train from Delhi to Jaipur on the 28th, or whatever. Crazy to think it wasn't even that long ago.
Now imagine this process before widespread affordable long-distance telephone service!
Here's my actual, non-trolling, thought out take on dogs.
People who see a gray area where letting your dog off leash in a wide open space might be worth it understand animals as having some form of right to a good life.
Matt uses the example of driving as a metaphor. The baseline thing about driving is that as a society, we have decided that hurtling around in two-ton metal weapons that regularly kill thousands of people every year is worth the benefits of faster travel. His argument about particular speeds exist at the margin. Going 40mph in a residential 25mph zone is bad, but if we're being honest, the average flow of travel in these zones seems to be between 27 and 33mph.
Similarly, we've decided as a society that benefits of joy and companionship that animals provide is worth the minimal risk of accidents. As a matter of fact, way fewer people are injured by dogs than cars every year.
I see having your dog off leash in certain contexts as driving between 27-33mph in a 25mph zone. 33 is pushing. 27 is well within the bounds of "considerate".
In conclusion: BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH TRADE-OFFS
I don't have a strong take on what dog leashing rules should be, so I'll just banally say that it's reasonable to have time, place, and manner restrictions in both directions, depending on the level of possible harm. What the details of that would be, I'll let others with stronger takes duke that out in the comments.
Some not very good/poor answers from Matt regarding business practices.
He is lumping in predatory practices by quasi monopolies with "business dynamism".
The good form of "Business dynamism" is when it easy for players to enter and exit the production process. Think many firms competing to drive margins to zero. But that is not what is happening in the USA.
In most sectors we have only a few players (per geography or economic strata), because of economies of scale. These few players are able to sustain high profit margins (see stock performance) over many many years because barriers to entry are high and capital chases high profit margins. Some of the high stock valuation is genuine new innovation but a lot of it is "innovation" of ways to nickel and dime customers.
The idea that in this scenario, the quasi monopolists extracting rents by hidden costs and frictions is "business dynamism" is a laughably bad take.
Regulation is not just about externalities, it also has a place when economies of scale reduce the number of feasible players in any sector to very few.
Companies should only be able to set prices when
- Demand is elastic
- There is genuine choice in the market place (like for varieties of cereal or something)
Matt’s answer on the inefficiency of fixed pricing illustrates why nobody!likes or trusts economists. In theory, his answer is correct. In practice, people know this makes their lives less important enjoyable while the efficiency benefits accrue to other people.
Efficiency is a good thing, but not the only good thing. As the OP questioner stated, there is a significant cost to the consumer for these systems that guarantee a political backlash
But sometimes you do have to listen to the wisdom of economists over populist bullshit or you will end up like Venezuela.
I hope you’re not given such binary choices!
I value economists, but Matt has certain areas where he really doesn’t grasp the psychology of consumers and the value of non-monetary things. Like a world where only rich people and fans who save for years to see a favorite artist is a pretty cultural bleak place. His Europe answer also demonstrates his belief that larger is always better without engaging in the costs and benefits of large companies and billionaires
I think he grasps it but he likes to push against what is the received wisdom in left of center spaces, which can be good, bad, or annoying. I think it's useful when a lot of progressives push regulation as the answer to everything and don't consider the concept of tradeoffs or drawbacks (whereas many conservatives don't consider the downsides of a purely market approach).
As to the concerts, I think it's a tricky issue because no one is going to be fully satisfied since the supply does not meet the demand for certain artists. And then you have to ask is it possible or desirable for the government to intervene in this and if so what it should look like. But I don't really know what the right answer is.
The only government I’d want for concerts is ensuring people see the real price and help regulate second markets. Fans should have a real chance at the ticket lottery.
To me, one of the most egregious abuses of the modern economy is how often actual pricing is obscured. I wish companies had to show the final price with all fees and taxes up front. If it says $10, you pay exactly $10. Now, it might be $6 with a secret code, or $20 after all the fees are added in. It’s almost impossible to know how much things will cost before you get to check out. It’s very consumer hostile
Surprise fees at checkout and cancellation labyrinths for services are the two most annoying business junk practices to me.
This is of a different nature, but a checkout prompt that annoys me are the pleading for donations. If you want to be charitable, just pull a Paul Newman and say you'll donate some of your profit instead!
I agree with that
I think that ad supports point. I pulled my numbers from Google and they seem to track fairly well if a bit high. But my today prices are also high. Best buy app currently has printers available for $50 at the low end while the all in one from ypur 1998 ad is ~$1000 in today's dollars with simpler ones down around $400. That tracks pretty close to the price ratio from my original comment.
Whether the consumer today has a better experience than back then isn't really the thing to compare for pricing models. The comparison is what the printer would cost today and whether it would still exist in today's market. That advert was pushing the idea of printing out your pictures but that isn't a thing normies do today. Would a sufficient market exist for $400-$1000 home printers exist today? My argument is that it wouldn't. The current pricing scheme is frustrating but its functional in a way that the 1990s model would not be in the modern context.
Did you mean to reply to another comment?
It appears so. Mobile app got me.
the european regulation question is wild. Like, dude, European regulation is literally the reason for enshittification of so many things.
Why, for years, was it so fucking hard to get a DVD player that worked on Windows? European regulation.
Why do I have to click a super annoying banner on every website, even random ones that clearly are not going to invade my privacy? European regulation
This is to say nothing of the many inconveniences/enshittification that is local to Europe. Like that, in Germany, it's pretty normal to go to a bar and order "a beer" because the bar does, in fact, only serve one brand of beer! Sure, it is more convenient to you in the sense that you don't actually have to spend any mental capacity on whether you like Augustiner more than you like Löwenbräu, but is that really to your benefit? Come on, now.
Have you been recently? Buy a bottle of water next time you're there and see how bad things have gotten.
I still lived there during the mandated 10cent deposits for all bottles thing, if that's what you mean?
Detachable bottle caps are banned, so every bottle of water has an attached lid that gently caresses your face every time you take a drink.
yup...but I'm in various parts of Europe 6-12 times a year so I see this stuff on a rolling basis.
Some regulations like cutting down on Apple's arrogant, obnoxious bullshit about charger exclusivity are good
Then you get equally stupid solutions like mandating USB-C charges on everything like they did in India. Which I am sure in 5-10 years is going to be FANTASTIC for innovation.
And apple's chargers weren't exclusive. The specification, yes, the equipment, no. You could buy a $5 third party lightning cable that worked as well as the $20 one that Apple sold you.
The ideal solution would have been for some sort of licensing agreement where Lightning becomes the standard. The Lightning plug is over a millimeter narrower than USB-C, where in consumer electronics thinness carries a massive premium. I am so bummed that we ended up with the worse solution because of regulation.
Lightning doesn't get as mating cycles before the connector wears out and since it has fewer terminals than USB-C it could never be as fast, so it's not like it's superior.
I get the point about speeding: creating danger, not seeing yourself as doing anything wrong. But I’m curious what Matt thinks about the inverse case: people who drive below the limit under normal weather and traffic conditions.
I mean going 26 in a 35 on a weekday morning with a line of cars stacked behind you. If someone has a reason to go slow (car trouble, etc.), that’s totally fine. But far too many people do it just because...
I think that behavior is disrespectful to others, induces frustration, and actually causes a lot of people to speed the moment the slowpoke finally gets out of the way.
There absolutely needs to be a minimum speed limit on controlled access freeways. They're at their safest when everyone is going within about the same speed as everyone else.
Also, slow vehicles on curvy 2 lane rural highways with no passing opportunities need to pull over frequently when they're delaying other drivers. Especially the RVs, they're always the absolute worst at this.
Matt's completely overstating the value of crap like surprise "convenience fees" at checkout and cancellation labyrinths for cable services to claim that that kind of nonsense is necessary for GDP growth!
Interesting that price discrimination came up, because Southwest is moving to that model this month, I believe - and I absolutely hate it, as do a lot of other regular clients, because the marketing around it reeks of dishonesty. You'd think, with dynamic pricing, the cramped middle seat would cost less, but no, now it's just the baseline and every other seat is "luxury extra legroom" and cost $70 more. Notably, it's also been paired with the rollout of several other obnoxious policies from Southwest, including reducing the length of time your flight credits last and reducing the value of loyalty points, which I think is an underrated element of this. Most businesses practicing junk fee stuff are also engaged in other annoying and duplicitous practices that make the consumer feel exploited, like pricing that changes based on what browser you're using, surprise fees at checkout, exclusions in the fine print, additional charges for things that seem like they should be included, difficulty canceling services, so on, so on, so that while the price discrimination itself may be more efficient and even fair, overall it sours the consumer on the whole enterprise. There's a reason people call it Ticketbastard.
southwest couldn't make it any longer...due to the Jesus flights and various other issues. revealed preferences are a thing.
The only people who cared about Jetway Jesus that much were people who basically lived on Reddit. I flew 2-3x a week for three years and saw a big line of preboarders maybe three times. Prior to the changes they were actually a profitable airline, so we'll see how they do after all these changes.
I wonder if this was geography specific. My work exclusively provided SW flight until last year for work travel and in 2024 every flight was comical for me. Easily >50% of those flights were preboarders. Last year was all AA which was surprisingly good though.
It was nice to have an airline that was not Same Old Generic Airline...
The efficiency gains are entirely internalized for the service provider, never the consumer. We have rapidly moved from disruptive companies who offer technology or services that can make lives easier (the early incarnations of things like Uber, Amazon, etc.) to companies who have completed their disruption, and are now trying to drain every last drop of money from existing customers by hook or by crook, while also making unavoidable, everyday activities more difficult and aggravating (again, Uber, Amazon, etc.).
And by things like surge pricing, etc. leaking down into all sorts of ticking/transactions (not just particularly high demand/high salience things like a Taylor Swift concert or reservations at a pricey restaurant) you provide opportunities for people with enough money to improve their experience (while increasing revenue from high earners for the service provider), while simultaneously making the experience shittier for everyone who cannot throw money at these things.
“ The question of whether Republicans would have — or ever will in our current timeline — come to the view that there is something wrong with Trump as a person, even if you are in broad alignment with him on the issues, is important and interesting.”
I’m a republican who fits this to a tee. And I know a lot of people who are in the same boat. In short, this has always been the case on the republican side with a substantial minority of Trump supporters.
I remember when Trump was inaugurated in 2017. Around that time he was asked about Putin and he said something along the lines of, “I like Putin. He says nice things about me.” I was stunned by that, and I’ve viewed Trump through the lens of that statement ever since. An extremely strange man with a powerful mix of toxic narcissism, self-confidence, and a feral perspicacity.
I suspect part of the unleashed dogs where they’re not supposed to be unleashed and dogs in places they aren’t supposed to be is partly due to people who were never dog owners before getting dogs during the pandemic. Inexperienced dog owners aren’t as likely to understand why a dog needs to be leashed, or that an untrained dog is not a happy dog.
I also suspect that people ended up with dogs that were unsuitable for their lifestyle because there was a strong demand for dogs and most people think you should go to the shelter so the dogs that were available weren’t the ones best suited for beginners.
Throw in the emotional support animal phenomenon, which has wrongly convinced people that they can bring their ESA into places where dogs are forbidden, and you have people comfortable bringing dos where they shouldn’t be