It also occurs to me that there should be no more sophisticated consumer than a billionaire. If one really wanted, I'd imagine they could build their own submersible to their own safety specifications.
Common misconception, don't need to be intelligent or sophisticated to be one, social skills and utter ruthlessness seem to be way more indicative.
Many billionaires, including the one on board, frequently demonstrate how wholly unsophisticated and arrogant they are. Extreme hubris was on display by everyone involved.
I would reserve judgment on that, there was a teenager involved and I highly doubt they were of an age which allowed them to absorb the knowledge to properly evaluate the risks. There also was his dad and the CEO of the company on board which may have given him an extra degree of feeling that the risks were acceptable.
Ok. Extreme hubris was on display by everyone involved except maybe one of them, the adult son.
Yes. I feel bad for that guy the most. So young, and of course he probably didn’t had the resources to independently verify the safety of the sub. Unlike the millionaire passengers could have just thrown tenth of the ticket price at any marine engineer who would have been able to explain to them how dangerous the whole thing is.