cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/51259064
Shopping for airfare is clearly a game full of shenanigans. You find a cheap ticket, get a (likely fake) indicator warning how few seats are available with a countdown timer, rush through a lengthy process of being forced to make a shit-ton of decisions like whether you want to buy an neck wrap, selfie stick, a bad travel insurance deal, … lots of shit to get through to slow you down. You finally get to the last screen and it says “price has increased since we first quoted you”. Motherfuckers.
Considering aircraft are quite shitty for climate, why not make the airlines shenanigans backfire against them? We have bots arbitrarily hit the air travel sites, enter bogus orders but never submit the last page. Just give the airlines a false indicator of demand. This games their dynamic pricing to quote prices higher than optimum. Any deviation from optimum prices translates into lower profit, likely a consequence of lower sales.
Perhaps an org like Greenpeace would be interested in this tactic.
Stupid you. That’s not how economics works. If a more expensive seat boosts airline profits, then they would simply already increase prices to begin with. They don’t need our permission. They can charge $1 million for a seat, if they want. But they will have a hard time selling the seat if it’s not going beyond the atmosphere.
Bit of econ 101 for you: If McDonalds spontaneously doubles the cost of a big mac out of the pure blue, they will more than double their profit on each burger. But they will sell substantially fewer, causing profits to drop. The market determines what price is optimum for profit.