[yuliyp]

Airlines don't need a pretense to raise fares. They can, and do, adjust rates all the time to charge people as much as they can get away with. Unlike regulated industries such as insurance or utilities, there's nobody they have to convince to let them raise their fares.

[elevatedastalt]

That's not as strong an argument as you think it is.

It is common for industries to have settle on points / equilibria based on what other players are doing, and companies typically don't unilaterally rock the boat too much.

However external factors act as forcing functions (I call them nucleation sites as a crystallization analogy) around which new equilibria can develop. Regulatory changes are one such example.

For example, during COVID many hotels shifted to not doing daily housekeeping. At that point they cited social distancing or workforce shortage reasons.

But it's been 2 years since the pandemic was completely over and many hotels now still don't do daily housekeeping. The prices of course haven't reduced.

Back in 2014 when California had a drought, my car dealership stopped offering free washes as part of the maintenance package citing bullshit "let's do our part in saving water" reasons.

The drought is long over but the free car washes have not come back.

[WrongAssumption]

They will do daily housekeeping, they just won’t do it automatically. Only if you ask, which I actually prefer.

[elevatedastalt]

I don't know why you are nitpicking about this while ignoring the base point I am making.

They used to do daily housekeeping automatically.

Now they don't.

We went from a default of "Opt-out" to "Opt-in"

This change happened across many hotels only during the pandemic despite the fact that, according to the parent poster, they could have done it any time, there was no regulation forcing them to do daily housekeeping.

[astura]

>We went from a default of "Opt-out" to "Opt-in"

So?

Hardly worth crying about and most of us prefer it this way.

[elevatedastalt]

Did you read the context of the conversation or just decide to pick on one line of my comment and make irrelevant replies?

The conversation is in the context of airlines making changes to their policies, and the parent poster made a claim that there was nothing stopping them from making those changes as there was no regulation or otherwise preventing them.

I am making the argument that wide changes in industries don't typically happen just like that even if there is no specific entity stopping them from making those changes. Industries settle on some equilibria, and trigger events like the pandemic or other major issues create the seed around which many players simultaneously implement changes.

The housekeeping change is an example of that.

It doesn't matter whether the older system is better or newer. The point is that hotels could have switched to a opt-in system any time, but most did not. The wide change happened triggered by the pandemic.

[astura]

You can get your room cleaned as much as you want, you just need to ask for it sometimes.

[elevatedastalt]

Please see my reply to the sibling commen.