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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3469 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 9, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I think this is a major contributing factor in the oft-discussed "enshittification" of everything. The world has become increasingly flat, and increasingly bland. Car companies don't take risks, and everything they sell is some shade of grey with maybe some blue scattered in. Companies increasingly recognize that any small "lifehacks" or perk can be monetized, and our sense of hope and wonder fades away. Even Disney World has MBA'd itself into a place I would no longer remotely describe as the "happiest place on earth".

The phenomenon stems largely from corporate consolidation, as well. You used to have a bevy of media options and ownership groups, which could bring multiple flavors of radio stations and newspapers to even a mid-size town. Now they're all pretty much owned by the same handful of companies. And how many quaint local mom-n-pop stores have succumbed to Amazon and Wal-Mart?

Even Disney World has MBA'd itself into a place I would no longer remotely describe as the "happiest place on earth".

I actually went to Disneyland with my wife and daughter a couple months ago, and I was shocked by how much it wasn't MBA'd. The tickets were cheaper (inflation-adjusted) than they were when I was a kid, the food was decently good and not horribly expensive (~$20 / meal for decent bbq with big enough portions that we only needed one full meal plus a few snacks during our entire time from park open to park close), there weren't really any of the rigged carnival games that are optimized to make it seem like you just barely missed the big prize and should just try One More Time that you see in other amusement parks, and the lines didn't shove ads in your face (again, unlike other amusement parks). Possibly I just went in with sufficiently low expectations that I was pleasantly surprised.

Oh, yeah, if your standard of comparison is a normal amusement park, Disneyland is head and shoulders above it. Even from the start, Disney explicitly planned Disneyland as a fix to the sleaziness of most carnivals. I think if you ever see predatory carnies and garbage in the streets at Disneyland, the end times will truly be upon us.

I think what @durdenhobbes was referring to is more the fact that, to really get the most out of Disneyland (i.e. not spend all day waiting in line for 3 rides), you need to optimize it in a rather un-family-friendly way. You need to research historical crowd data, track queue times on your phone in real time, minmax your route through the park, schedule your FastPass usage optimally, etc.

Even Disney World has MBA'd itself into a place I would no longer remotely describe as the "happiest place on earth".

The kids for whom Disney World is supposed to be the happiest place on earth didn't see the schedule optimisation that old-school Disney adults used to do, and they don't see the bills for Genie+ or whatever the latest incarnation is. They either get the promised happiness if the parents get it right, or spend the day underwhelmed waiting in queues and wandering around theme areas if they get it wrong.

The Motte preferentially attracts the sort of person for whom autistically optimising a day at a theme park is fun, rather than a chore which normies who can afford to will pay money not to have to do. But I don't think poring over planners is obviously happier than working overtime to pay for Genie+, and neither is supposed to be part of the happiness in the first place.

I agree that the US Disney parks are more crowded in general than they used to be, even given the continuously rising prices, and that this makes them less happy. It would be good for humanity (though not necessarily for their monopolistic bottom line) if Disney opened a third US park in the Midwest.

Companies increasingly recognize that any small "lifehacks" or perk can be monetized,

My new car doesn't have cruise control, because I didn't think to check or choose the $2000 upgraded trim package (not that I could. It was used.).

I feel like that sort of thing is common with car makers... there's a "base model" with basically nothing - no cruise control, no power windows, etc. - and then there's the reasonably priced first trim upgrade that gives you all the things most people expect at a minimum in modern cars.

The steelman of price discrimination is that it enables a lower floor to a product's price than if it had to offer a single price point, which helps accessibility. It can even be good, in that the people who overpay for a few extras (especially for stuff like "color stitching" on seats or other visual upgrades which are pretty much just signaling that they could afford to pay for a fancy trim) are subsidizing the product for the people who get the cheaper ones. That if you made it illegal and that all cars had to have only one trim, it'd be a middle trim, it'd be more expensive than the current middle trim and the people who could only afford the base trim now just can't buy it anymore.

I feel like there needs to be a name for the steelman that like, obviously isn't true and is a fig leaf for the money grubbing that the company wanted to do anyways. Like, does anyone actually believe that advertising is "connecting people to goods and services that will better their life"? Or that price discrimination isn't immediately used to capture all the excess value of a transaction*?

* So in theory, every transaction has two winners; both people only made the trade if they believe that the trade is worth more for them than what they're giving away (tautologically - would anyone voluntarily make a trade that they thought was all downside?) The issue with price discrimination is that instead of both parties capturing some excess value from the trade, one party captures almost all the excess value, while the other captures epsilon (as in, just enough to make the trade worthwhile, but no more).

What makes it true or not is how healthy the competition and the market is. A company that only did this to extract more money from each sale would find itself having a hard time finding buyers compared to cheaper competitors. Companies that offer a genuinely good deal don't do it from the goodness of their heart, they do it because it's also a valid business strategy to aim at making a larger number of sales with a lower profit margin.

The issue with price discrimination is that instead of both parties capturing some excess value from the trade, one party captures almost all the excess value, while the other captures epsilon (as in, just enough to make the trade worthwhile, but no more).

In the case of "signaling" addons, it's quite possible that both the car manufacturer and the customer are happier with price discrimination. After all, the point of signaling is that you're showing everyone you paid for something expensive because you have money. If it was cheaper, or if it was available on every trim, that exclusive paint color or colored stitching the rich person paid for wouldn't be useful to signal how rich he is.

A company that only did this to extract more money from each sale...

That is literally every company that uses price discrimination. They don't get punished either because of market inefficiencies or because they sell goods that aren't interchangeable with competitors' goods.

Or because they are being rewarded by the customers who get the low prices. Remember what happened when JC Penney abolished sales and tried to market themselves as offering "everyday low prices".

People who complain about price discrimination are doing it from the frame of "if we ended price discrimination, everyone would get the low prices". But in the real world people love price discrimination when it gets framed as "you get a discount, you get a discount, you don't this time but try harder next time". There are a whole load of businesses where the main purpose of the sticker price is to frame the (often discriminatory) real price as a discount. This doesn't work for airline full fares or hotel rack rates any more because people got wise, but it still works for clothes (see JC Penney above) and it appears to be the norm in a wide range of sectors including new cars, college tuition, and consumer SaaS.

The frontman :)

What car company? Just so I can be absolutely certain to never buy one.

Ford. They fixed it in later model years, but still. I'm kind of with you on that now.

Yeah, I'm glad I've never owned one. That's been standard on all but the most basic cars since at least the 80s. What money-grubbing bastards.

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