[JumpCrisscross]

> would still never splurge $200 for a trip to the airport

Would you splurge $200 on anything? There are 8.6 million people in New York and 1.7 million in Manhattan. Some fraction of those can call this their cup of tea.

Like, I will never splurge for curbside bag check. That doesn't make it a plutocratic privilege. eVTOLs have lots of downsides that are worth debating. Only solving "problems for the 0.001%" is not one of them. That designation belongs to private jets.

[cguess]

I'd absolutely splurge $200 on a lot of things (a date just the other day for instance) but there's many options at least as convenient, remembering you still have to get to the helipad, as this.

As a New Yorker I don't want these things with zero failure ability anywhere near me. At least a helicopter can autorotate.

[ericd]

I think many people reflexively assume that this in the same cost tier as a private jet. I wonder if it could eventually get to somewhere on the order of uber per mile, since a mile takes much less pilot time, and the maintenance requirements are presumably lower on these than on traditional single engine piston aircraft.

[lmm]

> Like, I will never splurge for curbside bag check. That doesn't make it a plutocratic privilege.

Doesn't it? It feels like it to me, like that $70 coffee with gold flakes that was doing the rounds a year or two back - sure, it's technically an amount of money that a regular person could spend, but it's absolutely not a product for them.