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Comment by brutal_chaos_ | Hacker News Reader

Price doesn't have to be the gatekeeper. That is an artificial division that leaves out hard working individuals who happen to be making money for someone else rather than themselves (among others). (Also "Get a better job," only goes so far.) What they could do, is, idunno, set a capacity limit based on experience of users and develop changes for their users and not just their pocket books.

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True. Using price as the only gatekeeper means you have to be okay with a large swath of the population never having access, no matter how many times they are told to read self-help books about making more money.

Besides, I'm sure Disney has thought about this. Going to a Disney park is usually somewhere between a once-a-year or a once-a-decade treat for families with kids. They'd probably rather have it be just affordable enough for middle class families because those families and kids go on to consume tons of other Disney content and merchandise. Letting average people have access means it reinforces the fandom for generations to come, as opposed to just having the park be a rich people thing.

> Going to a Disney park is usually somewhere between a once-a-year or a once-a-decade treat for families with kids.

2 things:

1. You left out the "once in a lifetime" for most folk (eg. from countries without a park).

2. Disney doesn't need to thin the "once-a-decade-or-less" crowd. If those are filling up the parks, build more parks. You won't scare those away with pricing unless your prices really explode - and I'd wager that is beyond the point where you seriously harm the brand for price gouging in people's eyes.

You can make that assumption, but the other way to think about it is that time in the park is a scarce resource. The “clearing” price has to be higher or you have some other artificial way to get a ticket.

Your comment seems to imply that raising the price and then excluding people is a bad thing…when in reality it might actually make anyone who does attend have a better experience. Does this mean those who wish to attend might have to save more for the experience and thus make it less available as an annual trip? Probably. I’m not sure this is a bad thing and might actually make the trip to Disney all that more special.

My apologies, the intent was to suggest that we may be able to find a more fair division.

> I’m not sure this is a bad thing and might actually make the trip to Disney all that more special.

Exclusivity makes for an air of "special"-ness, absolutely, but the line of division doesn't necessarily have to be a monetary one. (I have a complaint with no answer, but we're a smart group, lets find one).

Edit: ninjas and typos

So how do you actually enforce that capacity limit? Take reservations at the current price levels and the parks will just end up pre-booked for the next decade within the month.

A mix would probably be better. Allow some folks to (over-)pay their way in, and then give others cheap or free access through a raffle or community-building programs.

The only problem with this is the same reason taxes are compulsory.

> So how do you actually enforce that capacity limit?

Any company can set cap limits and wait limits. "Sorry, we're booked out 1 month, check back soon." (Don't major restaurants do this?) More people want to visit than cap or time allows, open more locations. &c.

If we're making up ways on letting more people getting the Disneyland experience why can't we just build more of them?

You're right, it's not the only way, but they would still need a way to allocate limited capacity so tickets would need to be hard to get for some other reason. Maybe camping out in a long line to get tickets, or pressing a button on the website at the right time?

People would complain about that too, though maybe it would be more enjoyable once you got in.

Venues deal with capacity limits in different ways and they all have their advantages and drawbacks.

More capacity would help. Maybe Disney should build another park?

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