My main memory of LAX was being accosted by Hare Krishnas.
Airports are designed to keep large groups of passengers moving as efficiently as possible, and as a result they need to make some tradeoffs. Airports aren't and shouldn't really be designed for sleeping - there's a thing called hotels for that. A lot of airports have capsule hotels paid per hour for exactly this purpose.
The root cause seems to be airlines aren't actually forced to provide enough compensation to cover a hotel. Regulation would be a much easier solution than redesigning airport to accommodate sleeping.
Only complaint I agree with is the "please do not leave your bags unattended" spam on the PA. Whoever came up with that idea deserves a couple years of solitary confinement with said PA in the cell, for increasing the danger due to alert fatigue and people completely tuning out the PA, making the channel completely worthless.
Airports almost always sell everything at vastly inflated prices and are designed to take every penny off you. At Edinburgh Airport, some years ago, the staff were even disallowed free drinking water from a bar even though the entire place is full of air conditioning. No idea if that has changed but heard that off someone who worked there.
I somehow got interested by quote and searched it (as is?) on duckduckgo to find a relevant reddit discussion where people were (are?) discussing trains and many other things.
Interesting quote to say the least. Here's the relevant reddit discussion
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/hqtgyg/tuesd...
https://www.afar.com/magazine/a-look-inside-portland-oregons...
The interior woodwork is expansive and impressive.
Compared to every railway station I've seen, airports are 5-star resorts. Bus terminals are even worse than railway stations.
The only thing they compare favourably with are shopping centres. A horrible place to spend several hours or more. Noisy, expensive, usually sterile and ugly. Not my idea of fun. Little or no natural beauty (I gather Singapore and some others have tried to turn this around.)
They also feel like a kind of police state.
Also, every time I visit a new airport in the US, it comes to mind how damn near every medium-sized city has a sprawling, fairly clean, air-conditioned airport, with shops and seating, usually open 24 hours. The Amtrak stations in those same cities, if they exist, are usually one-room buildings that close for most of the day. The Greyhound station is nowadays usually just a spot on the side of the road.
Why the disparity? I guess there are just that many more people flying than taking the bus or train? (Built-in security and a generally richer clientele certainly help too, I'm sure)
But the cost (unless free) often ends up being somewhat similar to just parking at the bar anyway.
I prefer to not arrive THAT early. Maybe if I had more layovers I’d care more about it.
The expensive stores are a good point though, I always bring in my own food.