[cwmma]

Is there a term for a product which is really only really for a minority of it's users?

Air travel seems like this as most airlines and manufacturers seem to bend over backwards for their wealthy and high margin passengers and basically treat economy class as "fine I guess we'll throw the rest of you in the back"

Mobile games seem the apotheosis of this as a lot of games are really about finding whales and any enjoyment anyone else has is really an accidental side effect.

[arjie]

You’re describing the “whale model”. The entire product is aimed at the few big participants and everyone else is brought there only because there’s a chance they might be one. So it’s a probabilistic thing.

In any case, I don’t actually agree with you. The advent of Basic Economy as a category shows that. I always wanted an ultra cheap category in the US when I was young and now it exists. That category is valuable to the kind of person who is aiming simply to be transported from one place to another and can withstand discomfort.

Overall, I really like air travel in the US. There’s a straightforward sliding scale of comfort and price and you pick where you want to be on it. Flights are available often and easily. The prices also seem to align with things that would cost airlines and because they surge prices etc they’re able to balance availability and accessibility.

European air travel is also good with many options but I don’t have much experience with it recently. And of course the E Asian airlines are good. I don’t mind a classic Cathay but a Starlux plane is very nice even in Economy.

As someone who has flown every class available and routinely selects based on what and with whom I’m traveling, I think air travel today is more accessible and nicer than ever before.

[throwaway2037]

    > I don’t mind a classic Cathay but a Starlux plane is very nice even in Economy.

What makes Starlux so much better? When I think of Cathay, the advantages that come to mind: (1) excellent, professional service from flight attendants, even in cattle class, (2) pretty good food, (3) large check-in crew (shorter lines), (4) good gate location.

[yongjik]

> Air travel seems like this as most airlines and manufacturers seem to bend over backwards for their wealthy and high margin passengers and basically treat economy class as ...

You got it backwards. If economy passengers preferred better services to cheaper fare, they would have chosen airlines with better services, and airlines would have to adapt accordingly, offering better and more expensive services.

They can't, because when it comes to their wallets, passengers don't actually prefer that, whatever they say online.

Business/first class passengers are a minority group who say "Fuck it, I have money, I want to be treated like I have money." So of course airlines offer them better service - at a much higher price.

[throwaway2037]

    > Business/first class passengers are a minority group who say "Fuck it, I have money, I want to be treated like I have money."

I'm pretty sure that that majority of people flying in business class are paid for by their employer. First class is another story: It is people not quite rich enough for private jets, but want to sleep on their flight. Hardly any business pays for first class tickets. However, many regular business travellers can accrue enough miles to get periodic upgrades.

[tb99]

> If economy passengers preferred better services to cheaper fare, they would have chosen airlines with better services

It's not quite that simple. Unless you fly a lot, it's hard to know about service differences between two airlines -- which has better air quality, more efficient disembarking, fewer recitals of the credit card pitch, etc. Passengers have to make their choices based on the subset of their preferences that they can actually compare, which is a pretty small subset.

Not that price isn't very important! But if I make my decision based on just (schedule, price, luggage policy, seat pitch, seat location), it's because that's all the info I've got.

[nairboon]

There is also the airline brand as an information. Some are explicitly branded as low-cost/low-comfort other not.

[sharkotter]

Some of us are saying "Fuck it. I have money and want to fit in my seat"

[dredmorbius]

Not aware of a term, per se, but this is typical of many service-related goods, especially in transportation and communications in which the fundamental underlying service (getting somewhere, getting a message somewhere) is not readily differentiated. That's directly applicable to the air-travel example here.

19th century French polymath (economist, engineer, bureaucrat) Jules Dupuit famously described this concerning railway carriage accomodations and the parlous state of third-class carriages:

It is not because of the several thousand francs which they would have to spend to cover the third class wagons or to upholster the benches. ... [I]t would happily sacrifice this [expense] for the sake of its popularity.

Its goal is to stop the traveler who can pay for the second class trip from going third class. It hurts the poor not because it wants them to personally suffer, but to scare the rich.

<https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/why-does-air-travel-suck-...>

More on Dupuit:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Dupuit>

You'll find similar examples in digital / software goods, where product differentiation (and price discrimination) are often achieved by producing otherwise identical goods, and then selectively disabling features in the lower-priced variants. Microsoft Windows NT server vs. workstation was one early notorious example, though IBM also apparently included No-OP loops in servers which could be disabled for higher performance. See: <https://landley.net/history/mirror/ms/differences_nt.html>.

(I've ... mentioned Dupuit previously: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...>.)

[kelnos]

I don't think it's that. It's just what the mass market wants. For economy-class passengers, the overwhelmingly first-place concern is the price of the ticket. People accept shit service, shit food, random seat assignments, inconvenient timing and connections, etc. all for a cheaper ticket. For some people, the ticket cost is the only thing they care about.

So it's a race to the bottom. Airlines are famously low-margin businesses, so they really have no choice but to save as much money as they can by continually pushing the envelope on what depravities passengers will accept. And as they keep pushing, people complain, but they still eat it up and love the lower prices.

If economy class passengers would actually pay for perks and a nicer experience, the airlines would provide it. And sometimes they kinda-sorta do, via economy plus, premium economy, and similar (whatever the particular airline chooses to call it). But, by and large, people just care about the lowest price, so many planes don't even have mid-range service options, and some airlines don't even offer them at all.

[ajb]

The one I really don't accept is the Ryanair Russian Roulette pricing model, where they advertise cheap prices, but have many hidden tripwires that add a multiple of the sticker cost.

[throwaway2037]

Casinos work in a similar manner. Whale customers get way more attention that other customers.

[shellfishgene]

Even in these marketing shots they could not make those thin and straight seats look anything but terribly uncomfortable.

[datakan]

Airlines treat people like cattle then wonder why people behave like animals. I just did a cross country trip, about 4 hours per hop. I was so sore after that I've basically sworn off traveling that way ever again.

You can tell they keep removing space to fit more bodies in at all costs because they don't even try to line up seats with windows anymore. Multiple seats had windows in places that made them basically useless and one seat from what I could tell had two windows just due to the placement.

Don't even get me started on the cart that goes up the aisle handing out dry cookies to everyone followed by the person with a trash bag coming along to gather it from you.

I had school buses as a kid that were more comfortable and the people better behaved.

[Analemma_]

Everybody but the wealthy shops for airline tickets with price as their only criterion. Airlines are rational agents who operate in a famously competitive and low-margin business, so they respond to this demand-- indeed, they don't have any choice.

I have a lot of complaints about products and services that I can chalk up to various market failures or sinister actors, but poor airline experience is entirely on us, the consumer. Our revealed preference is for the lowest possible ticket price all else be damned.

[Arn_Thor]

I have racked up some air miles in my time. I am not wealthy, and price is a major criterion, but there are some airlines and airports I avoid at nearly all costs. I wish there were enough like me to put pressure on airlines to do better, but alas it's a losing battle it seems.

[fragmede]

The safety, even on the budget airlines is amazing. You wonder though, if they sold seats for $50, to get to the other side of the world, but you had a 10% chance of dying, how many people would take it.

[camgunz]

Nilay Patel (I'm gonna get this slightly wrong) has this story where he was talking to an airline CEO about standing-only tickets and the guy said "I know two things. If we did standing-only tickets we'd get roasted by the public, and those tickets would need the most popular tickets by far."

[kqr]

This was RyanAir's CEO. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/feb/28/ryanair-sta...

[seydor]

people pay a lot more for private jets which are comparatively a lot more dangerous

[throwaway2037]

If you are flying a professionally managed twin jet engine aircraft (not turbo-prop), like Netjets, then the real world safety difference is negligible.

[skinfaxi]

This would make for an interesting aspect of a dystopian future. Accepted liability as a slider basically. There would obviously be entire regimes around auditing the published numbers (since companies would be incentivized to make their options appear less risky than they are). Pretty anarcho-capitalist.

[arjie]

Ah but it’s 1% that you bought though 2 out of 100 of the last flights crashed. You ask for a refund or you pull out the pandas to check the likelihood they aren’t living up to the promise?

[inigyou]

This is called a race to the bottom.

[wat10000]

It's worth remembering that the airline market is very competitive and this happens because it matches consumer preferences. Yes, nobody wants to be crammed into a tiny seat. But given the choice between a large seat or a tiny seat that costs $5 less, people reliably choose to save $5. The only reason the experience is so miserable is because the flying public will accept nearly anything to save a little money.

It's also worth remembering that there are various premium options available. You can pay extra for economy plus or really splurge on business/first. "That's too expensive" OK well you made your choice....

[dingaling]

Premium Economy is so much more expensive than steerage class that it's not a realistic 'option' for the majority of potential passengers.

> " OK well you made your choice...."

The only choice for most people is "fly cheap" or "don't go".

[Johnny555]

The parent poster said "Economy plus", not "Premium Economy".

And while the names are confusingly similar, Economy Plus is usually a seat with extra legroom (but no additional width) and is a small price bump, but Premium Economy is a larger wider seat with generous recline (but not lay-flat), and is a large price increase, sometimes approaching business class pricing.

[decafninja]

Also adding to confusion is that different routes (and distances) have different hard products.

"Premium economy" on an international long haul flight is often the same (or very similar) seat as "first class" on a domestic flight.

I've recently been blessed with being able to afford flying on lie-flat seats (international business class). That said, I've found what you are calling "economy plus" to be the sweet spot.

You get slightly more leg room, but also priority boarding so that you don't have to worry about getting your bag gatechecked. It's also only slightly more expensive than main cabin regular economy.

"Premium economy" is significantly more expensive, and while you do get a bigger seat, it's not lie-flat. You can recline more, but the few times I've flown it, you are still able to piss off the passenger behind you when you recline with all the shenanigans that can entail. Thus I find it not worth the premium.

[FireBeyond]

Flying LAX to SYD and return in Delta Premium Select, at least 30 of the 40 seats wer empty, despite economy being full. I was curious about this, and learned that Delta had made a decision to largely stop bumping passengers up in many cases because they felt that they were passengers who would have paid for PS, but it had gotten to the point of passengers taking their chances ("I'll buy a Comfort Plus ticket, that usually gets me upgraded, and is cheaper.")

[yunwal]

The flip side is that those upgrades were a cheap way for delta to buy loyalty. I know a lot of people who flew many times a year on delta only and now look for other airlines.

[7jjjjjjj]

If you don't have a carry on, just get up and move. The flight crew has better things to do than check if you're in your assigned seat.

[wat10000]

Then be grateful that travel is cheap enough that you can go, even if it's uncomfortable.

[plantain]

K shaped economy.