I was just in Jena and decided to take a bus to Leipzig. The bus was like riding in a plush pillow, the driver even made coffee for everyone with a machine that was built into the actual bus.

Going back to Germany in a few hours to relive the experience.

Cheers from the 1950s, cheers from Sofia.

At least with flying, I don't have to worry that some hobo will steal my bags between "layovers" using the bus.

I used to ride Greyhound when I couldn't afford to fly, years ago.

There is no comparison. The bus is worse.

> cattle-car experience of air travel

Being herded in and out of a Greyhound at 3 AM by a pissed off driver is literally a cattle-car experience, and happens often.

I've only encountered smiling faces and helpful attitudes from flight attendants and pilots.

It's night and day.

Your impression is possibly why the bar gets nudged pretty high for mass transit providers in Germany.

To put Greyhound into context for you, the driver sits in a box made out of bullet proof glass.

So no matter how unpleasant Flixbus may be, I doubt that it's a life or death situation.

I travelled with Flixbus multiple times when the sector was still booming about two years ago. I don't understand the complains. Flixbus has comfortable seats, you can charge your phone and they have very fair prices for snacks and drinks. Of course, you do not have infinite space if you have long legs (but more than in a common bus) and the Wifi could be laggy sometimes. But hey, they had free wifi before the Deutsche Bahn was even thinking about it! And a online media center with quite a variety of films free to watch. They really made an effort to provide good service and offer a comfortable ride, so my experience.

I switched to ride sharing (not like Uber - but a in a way where someone who is taking a certain route anyway fills up their empty seats) since Flixbus got more expensive when their competition died out.

Really? I split my time between Canada and Germany and Flixbus was always reasonable (a bit late once though). Way cheaper than DB.

As a German, Flixbus is quite ok. Comfortable buses, and most trips have electric outlets, wifi and a working toilet.

Compared to the train, their toilets are unreliable, they experience way worse delays (30m-1h delay is not unusual from my experience, very understandable since traffic varies), provide fewer routes and have a pretty bad experience at the bus station (small stations are ok, big stations are always chaotic, nobody knows anything, personnel has no announcement system or even megaphones and is trying to herd people around by shouting information). But Flixbus is usually significantly cheaper than taking the train, making them a popular choice among students and other price-conscious travelers with flexible schedules.

I think as a German that has been using different forms of transit in the US, I think you - unknowingly - are comparing apples with oranges: Flixbus is bad, yes - but only for German standards.

Inner-american travel comes with much less "classiness". I don't know why; I'd like it to be because of more price competitiveness, since more access for poor people is a good thing. But i dunno. Just that inner-US flights have the flair of an european subway-commute.

Anyways: Riding the bus in Germany was always only chosen by those who couldn't afford train or plane. This is why I loathe Flixbus! City-to-city bus rides were prohibited* in Germany until Flixbus basically "uber"-ed the prohibition away. But their network of busses, drivers and subcontractors are basically the same of what the market offered before.

Personally I'd never expected ICE-train quality standards for for a fraction of the price.

[*] = to be exact, the Deutsche Bundesbahn (state owned railway) had the only license to operate inter-town bus-rides, which - being a town-connecting railway company - they "just happened" to under develop.