RE: The Solution to All That Ails Us: JUST LOWER THE PRICE!
Sounds like a rough long term trend where you find yourself on the front lines.
An interesting parallel and observation i had while reading.... I’ve often wondered why airlines and hotels don’t do the same thing with unnsold seats and rooms the day of the flight/booking. There is a general consensus that this is not done, but the reasons vary. Mostly it has to do with brand image and consumer psychology, although the marginal costs of each passenger/guest are not negligible. So even big companies have to deal with this question of not setting the floor too low.
Enter tech.
Marginal costs of an ad or a listing are nonexistent. The product is you. The supply is limitless. So they don’t have to play by the same rules. Instead they do what you are saying: prodding their customers to race to the bottom. I don’t see an end in sight.
I am not sure there is an end in sight. All the "air" has to come out of the system... and that is not going to be easy, because a lot of people's lives are held up by air.
Take housing. A pile of wood, nails, wiring and concrete + a "fair profit" for a builder might amount to $90,000, and yet the finished house (even considering land) in Seattle might be $750K, of which $600K is "air."
In your airline example, Scandinavian Airlines actually used to have something like that, flying from Copenhagen. They were called "green departures;" but you had to show up at the gate at departure time with NO guarantee you'd be on a flight... a sort of ultra standby. But if they had ten seats at the end, they'd let ten people from the waiting area get on a $300 flight for $75 or something like that.
Rent seeking behavior once again :D
That's really interesting! I think cruises will do something similar for last-minute cruise deals, probably because their marginal costs per passenger.