Maybe I am conditioned but I totally agree. I think what makes this kind of stuff not feel like a dark pattern to me is that they are very up-front about this setup being their business model.
They are offering a cheap seat which may even be below their cost if you avoid all the add-ons.
The consumer who skips all these add-ons feels smart. They feel like someone else is subsidizing their flight.
Perhaps we can even call this booking process a game where the customer comes out at the end feeling like they beat the level.
If any of you have seen Ryanair’s social media marketing you’ll know exactly what I mean. They make jokes about how cheap they are, like this one:
But that was this persons mistake, I'm still not sure what a "Travel Authorisation" even is outside of COVID checks.
Not checking into a flight, because you wont onto an entirely different website, to complete an entirely different form isn't the airline....
Services for wheelchair are handled by the airport, not the airline, again, I don't see anything in this comment where they sorted out the services that are required prior.
1. They make the online check-in thing ridiculously clear and it's been like that for at least a decade now. They send multiple emails warning people too.
2. Having utilised wheelchairs at airports you need to go very early. The airports don't have enough staff and they basically have to assign you someone for an hour to get you through security and on to the plane. The times I've done it, it's always airport staff and nothing to do with the airline.
My friend works in large tech; think SV, a satellite office in Amsterdam. Both of them earn greatly. With two kids, they literally don't have any saving at the end of the month. With 52% taxes and mortgage, even with child benefits. of course you don't pay a lot for the education, but the daily operational cost is very high. Small unplanned activity in NL can make you go in the red. Rising energy and grocery prices are not helping either.
Reddit for expat in netherlands is full these posts.
Your listing is not exhaustive - startups can also be acquired for politics, for marketing purposes, whatever. There is a lot of meat space things going on in the upper echelons of the US tech industry.
Recent history shows that an idealized view only focusing on fiduciary duty does not capture the whole picture of business in the USA.
Rarely does one acquire dollars for the sake of having dollars. Dollars are power tokens, and the acquisition of them beyond a certain point is almost always accompanied by a motive.
Legacy system users are also the one who pays the most for tools and services. We sell to enterprise, I can attest to that. If it is relevant usecase and positioning for the market, it should be fine.
yeah it’s been interesting to watch, we were surprised initially at how much legacy users actually wanted to adopt AI - I think it’s because of how awful the old software can be to interact with
It is just ironic - there are other countries who want talent that goes to US but does not have industry to support them. I guess this is how monopoly looks like.
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