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I actually don't think they are that bad - you just have to appreciate that when they have a maximum bag size (or some other arbitrary limit) they are entirely serious about it. And if you do break their rules they will try and charge you - but it's pretty easy to work within their rules so not a huge problem if you do some basic preparation.

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Which is exactly the parent's point about "bureaucratic game that rewards successful completion with a cheap airline ticket"

But it's not that bad. You need to do research about your travel destination anyways, like how are you going to get around, what places you want to visit, and some basic phrases in the destination language if relevant. Spending an extra 2-3 minutes checking how much stuff you can bring and whether you need any "dark pattern" options shouldn't be too hard in comparison but maybe I expect too much of the average traveller.

I don't expect to have to research the bag sizes every time I fly to the same destination just because Ryanair might have made them ever so slightly smaller.

But they haven't. They only changed them once in the past decade, it's not like it's a thing that budget airlines pull every year. Changing them sucks but it's not really a problem now.

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