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Comment by Swizec | Hacker News Reader

> As an aside, I don't know why AirBnB can't get their shit together and push all the fees to the map. My guess is that most of those fees are not per night? Well make the front matter say "$120/night + fees" and when you select your dates you know what the total cost is.

The problem is that everyone says we want this then votes with our wallet that we don’t.

Stubhub once tried to be upfront honest about fees. Bookings dropped like a stone. People just didn’t want concerts at those prices. But an extra $20 when you’re already paying $80, ehhh sure okay I’ve already come this far and feel pretty committed to going.

> As the study found, “Overall, the StubHub users who weren't shown fees until checkout spent about 21 percent more on tickets and were 14 percent more likely to complete a purchase compared with those who saw all-inclusive prices from the start.“

https://boondoggle.substack.com/p/stubhub-and-the-case-of-th...

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The StubHub example is the abuse that is being banned. Yes, you can bait and switch people and take more of their money than they are otherwise willing to spend if you deceive, manipulate, and withold disclosures. It is (arguably) wrong/bad, but profitable.

Exactly. When consumers don’t vote in their own best interest with their wallets, legislation is the only option.

Let’s do airlines next

Except that legislation is also not in their favor because companies will just find new ways to make money [as they should - I just wish they were more creative in providing value rather than just the "added fee shortcut"] In the end it's on consumers: People should just reward better service instead of picking the seemingly cheapest option and then cry that the world is unfair and someone has to fix it for them..

> People should just reward better service instead of picking the seemingly cheapest option

This is easy for us hackernews types with disposable income to say and very hard for the average person to implement. 57% of Americans can’t afford an unexpected $500 expense [1]

Always keep in mind the boots theory of economic unfairness:

> A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. ... But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/most-americans-cant-afford-a-50...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory

True but that lies in the nature of choices people make. Apart from mortgage (or in general credit on appreciable assets) I would not recommend the on-credit lifestyle that is ad-suggested as the American Dream™ (that's different for businesses, I'm not against credits in general). As an individual carry insurance, pay the year ahead. Yes it hurts, but not as much as that unexpected 500$ expense... The boot theory works pretty well with credit though ;)

> In the end it's on consumers: People should just reward better service instead of picking the seemingly cheapest option and then cry that the world is unfair and someone has to fix it for them..

They probably should, but people just don't work this way. We aren't machines that strictly go by the best economical output. Unless you find a way to make people do that (and I don't think this exists, since we'll always be partially driven by emotions) we have two options:

a) let people be exploited by companies

b) legislate against exploitation by companies

I for sure think the latter is the better option, especially since it forces companies to compete on value instead of just extraction.

What is the better service option to Ticketmaster that consumers should be rewarding?

Ticketmaster. There is no way to obtain a ticket that isn’t couched in a convenience fee: email delivery, venue pick up, snail mail, all “convenient” and chargeable.

Voting with your wallet is like trying to turn a river by getting a bunch of people together with buckets. Voting with your votes is building a dam.

Isn't it proof that legislation doesn't work? That people can't get simple, common sense laws passed? The past 15-20 years we've had plenty of time to do so, while the fees and surcharges have grown. That timeframe is enough to control for political parties and include a mix of all voter ages and incomes.

Well, people vote with their wallets that they like being scammed (I'm talking actual scams, not scammy business behavior) so does that mean that scamming should be allowed or made legal, or at least not made illegal?

> The problem is that everyone says we want this then votes with our wallet that we don’t.

I don’t see that as a problem whatsoever.

i see this idea of “i need to manipulate people for them to give me money” as the problem.

“if i don’t manipulate and obfuscate, no one wants my product” should make one reconsider their business model to one where they can be upfront and people still want the product.

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