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Comment by epistasis | Hacker News Reader

This process may seem ugly, but just like biological death is necessary for an ecosystem, this sort of death/restructuring is essential for capitalist economies. Assets and capital get reallocated to better uses. It's all part of the circle of life.

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Bankcruptcy and corporate death in general are important. However, the details of how that is managed can vary wildly, and not all implementations are equal.

In this case, the bankcruptcy was handled by cancelling all flights with 1 day of notice. This level of ugliness is not necessary.

“How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” -Hemmingway

Thank God human beings who spend money on these resources are left to fend for themselves. Imagine if we spent good money on a flight, and now the company winds down its operations even as we are on route to our destination. Since we are just a number, I supposed we should simply cease to exist or occupy a liminal space. Or maybe... we could be treated as a human being?

I'm guessing you misinterpreted my comment to assert that we should provide no consumer protections. That was not what I was saying. I'm talking pancakes, you're talking waffles.

How we treat capital and how we treat humans should not be connected to each other, and it's absolutely important that capital not be treated as if it were a person. Corporations are not humans, and we can not bail out investors while we let consumers flail. And we should never bail out corporations under the premise of helping humans, when direct assistance to humans would suffice.

Ideally, they should have stopped selling tickets and then stopped the flights when the sold flights were done. At least within some time frame like 1 month

Unfortunately continuing to burn money with no hope of recovery is not a popular strategy among judges and creditor's lawyers. Customers will either get refunds or join the back of the creditor line.

I doubt many people would buy tickets for a flight with a failing airline. That said, shutting down with effectively zero notice is pretty terrible, and they will probably need to do a bunch of repositioning flights, so they could have kept the lights on for one or two more days.

I agree with this.

I initially meant that they should have finished the flights they already sold tickets for, in some timeframe like one month.

Changed the phrasing so it is more clear.

In addition to the human cost that others mention, the big problem is that in our current system, this doesn't lead to fresh blood coming in and being able to compete on an even footing: it leads to the giant incumbents schlorping up the pieces and becoming even bigger and stronger.

Your statement might be true in a system with healthy safeguards ands competition, but that isn't the system we have in the real world today.

looks at ai investments

Sure.

My guess is that investment capital will move from affordable transport to job replacing ai, surveillance tech, weapons to kill foreigners or gambling platforms. So grateful for free markets

Comment is made after May 1st, international strike day.

> biological death is necessary for an ecosystem

Can you expand on this? How do you explain e.g. ecosystems around centuries-old redwoods?

Interesting example since giant sequoias benefit greatly from forest fires...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_sempervirens#Fire_adap...

That sounds more like religious dogma than thought out argument.

The capital will probably go to further the AI bubble, I really don't see how that would be more useful than enabling travel.

While it's fair to criticize how this screwed up customers (and perhaps workers), airline shutdowns are often good things, route/airport slots gets freed for example, and airlines with better value (cost or quality wise) can take over.

I don't live in the US but spirit has been the butt of jokes for years.

Sure, for those not affected by these capitalist decisions, left stranded in the middle of nowhere, or having to look for a new job, while the owner party at their coffy houses.

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