I recently flew and had to go through the non-TSA line because my wife doesn't have TSA.
It's possible that the reason we have shitty airport security procedures is that the well off can buy their way out of them. The same way we had shitty COVID policies because they had ZOOM jobs. That if they had to put up with it, the procedures might…
I recently flew and had to go through the non-TSA line because my wife doesn't have TSA.
It's possible that the reason we have shitty airport security procedures is that the well off can buy their way out of them. The same way we had shitty COVID policies because they had ZOOM jobs. That if they had to put up with it, the procedures might go away. Of course it's possible that they would remain the same and fewer people would be able to pay to escape. But its clearly a shakedown.
I'm reminded of a similar feeling people get related to "fast pass lanes" at amusement parks. While I don't automatically think its a bad idea to allow people to pay money for time, I'd much prefer that the price of admission were simply higher so that the lines were more reasonable (alternatively, that you had the old system of a certain # of tickets for specific rides). I don't want to have to figure out the fast past lane system and be waking up at 7am or whatever to log into some app to try to snag a slot. I don't want to sit there calculating the optimal level of fast passes to purchase for the day. I don't want to know that if my infant has a poop at the wrong time it will derail the carefully planned schedule that is my only hope.
And I don't want to tell my kids that we are going to be next on a ride we've been waiting in the heat for. Only for a family to come up the fast pass lane and delay our going on the ride next because they skip us. And I have to hear my kids whine and scream and not understand while I followed the advice that "fast pass lanes aren't necessary for young children rides" that they say on their website and yet somehow this young children's ride has a fast pass lane.
I get this with traffic. I get that a commute is something you do every day and you can understand, calculate, and adjust your life choices in response to new and clear financial incentives without too much trouble.
But these other pay to play systems that are too damn complicated and your trapped once you are there create a vast tax on my attention, imagination, empathy, and spontaneity.
The argument usually goes like this: the rich are also the powerful, they have disproportionate influence over decisions affecting the broader public, to include how much to invest in public infrastructure and how much to tax themselves to pay for it. If their wherewithal allows for their personal insulation from the public impact of their decisions, they have both a conflict of interrst and cannot be held accountable for deviating from optimal policy since they are not in the same boat as those without similar means and will not experience the fallout of bad decisions.
Two examples come to mind. One is the case of the liberal activist judge who lets every criminal defendant in his court off on any excuse and with at most a slap on the wrist, but who resides in a distant gates community and doesn't have to live or work or worry about his kids playing in the neighborhoods those defendants will continue to terrorize.
On a more banal level, I once attended a meeting regarding the question of how large should a campus parking garage be built, whether enough money should be spent to allow for as many spots as the anticipated demand such that any employee could just drive up and expect to find a place, or whether it should be much smaller, with limited permits issued by priority, and those without permits forced to buy their own spots off campus or else take cabs or public transit. Maybe one could crunch the economic numbers or do a welfare estimation and the decision might have gone either way. But actually, you already know the decision was to save the money for other things and build the smaller lot, because all the key decision-makers at the table were guaranteed priority executive parking spots regardless. You may say that they will might have felt some compunction or some scrupulous pang of duty and ... lolololol ... I'm joking of course, they didn't hesitate to screw over the lower ranks to fund their own pet projects (mostly corruptly awarding contracts to future employers on the understanding of that future employment).
On such matters there really is some social wisdom to what otherwise world seem pure resentment, which is that unless the disproportionately powerful are made to be a captive audience and have their own skin in the game of the experience of the consequences of their decisions, they will discount the harms experienced by others and make bad decisions for bad reasons.
> I don't want to have to figure out the fast past lane system and be waking up at 7am or whatever to log into some app to try to snag a slot.
Here, I've done the "work" for you.
The system is: if you have a pass, you can book an arrival window for one (1) ride, and you'll be allowed onto that ride if you show up during the window. You can repeat this as often as you like throughout the day, except that you can't book the same ride twice in one day. Disneyland has 14 rides that use the system, so you can use the pass up to 14 times in a day if you want to ride every one of those rides. If not, your limit will be lower.
You cannot ever book a slot in advance. You can't book a slot before you're admitted into the park, and you can't have more than one booking at a time. So there's no such thing as waking up early to try to beat the crowd to a slot, except to the extent that if you actually go to the park early the crowd will be smaller. Smaller enough that you probably won't want to consume your pass at that time, because the regular line is short.
I don't think the system can get a lot simpler than "you can use this once per ride, and if you have nothing booked, you can book one thing".
The fact that you have to reserve a slot suggests that there is more fast pass interest than Disneyland is willing to accommodate. There are two reasons they might limit fast pass arrivals: (1) they make each other slower; (2) they make the regular line slower. I don't think the carefully rationed fast pass arrivals are going to make much of an impact on the regular line. If they do start to do that... fast passes aren't fixed-price products. Disneyland will raise the price.
1) Trick poor people into buying tickets and then realizing they can't actually ride the rides.
2) Get rich people who have committed to being at the park to decide that surge pricing makes sense once you are sunk cost committed.
3) Get childless Disney adults with disposable cash to dump it in the park because they have the free time to exploit this system.
Feels like the same logic I see at the movie theater trying to get people to buy overpriced popcorn or the 7/11 trying to get people to buy cigs and scratch offs. I can smell "spreadsheet asshole praying on human weakness" when I see it.
I recently flew and had to go through the non-TSA line because my wife doesn't have TSA.
It's possible that the reason we have shitty airport security procedures is that the well off can buy their way out of them. The same way we had shitty COVID policies because they had ZOOM jobs. That if they had to put up with it, the procedures might go away. Of course it's possible that they would remain the same and fewer people would be able to pay to escape. But its clearly a shakedown.
I'm reminded of a similar feeling people get related to "fast pass lanes" at amusement parks. While I don't automatically think its a bad idea to allow people to pay money for time, I'd much prefer that the price of admission were simply higher so that the lines were more reasonable (alternatively, that you had the old system of a certain # of tickets for specific rides). I don't want to have to figure out the fast past lane system and be waking up at 7am or whatever to log into some app to try to snag a slot. I don't want to sit there calculating the optimal level of fast passes to purchase for the day. I don't want to know that if my infant has a poop at the wrong time it will derail the carefully planned schedule that is my only hope.
And I don't want to tell my kids that we are going to be next on a ride we've been waiting in the heat for. Only for a family to come up the fast pass lane and delay our going on the ride next because they skip us. And I have to hear my kids whine and scream and not understand while I followed the advice that "fast pass lanes aren't necessary for young children rides" that they say on their website and yet somehow this young children's ride has a fast pass lane.
I get this with traffic. I get that a commute is something you do every day and you can understand, calculate, and adjust your life choices in response to new and clear financial incentives without too much trouble.
But these other pay to play systems that are too damn complicated and your trapped once you are there create a vast tax on my attention, imagination, empathy, and spontaneity.
The argument usually goes like this: the rich are also the powerful, they have disproportionate influence over decisions affecting the broader public, to include how much to invest in public infrastructure and how much to tax themselves to pay for it. If their wherewithal allows for their personal insulation from the public impact of their decisions, they have both a conflict of interrst and cannot be held accountable for deviating from optimal policy since they are not in the same boat as those without similar means and will not experience the fallout of bad decisions.
Two examples come to mind. One is the case of the liberal activist judge who lets every criminal defendant in his court off on any excuse and with at most a slap on the wrist, but who resides in a distant gates community and doesn't have to live or work or worry about his kids playing in the neighborhoods those defendants will continue to terrorize.
On a more banal level, I once attended a meeting regarding the question of how large should a campus parking garage be built, whether enough money should be spent to allow for as many spots as the anticipated demand such that any employee could just drive up and expect to find a place, or whether it should be much smaller, with limited permits issued by priority, and those without permits forced to buy their own spots off campus or else take cabs or public transit. Maybe one could crunch the economic numbers or do a welfare estimation and the decision might have gone either way. But actually, you already know the decision was to save the money for other things and build the smaller lot, because all the key decision-makers at the table were guaranteed priority executive parking spots regardless. You may say that they will might have felt some compunction or some scrupulous pang of duty and ... lolololol ... I'm joking of course, they didn't hesitate to screw over the lower ranks to fund their own pet projects (mostly corruptly awarding contracts to future employers on the understanding of that future employment).
On such matters there really is some social wisdom to what otherwise world seem pure resentment, which is that unless the disproportionately powerful are made to be a captive audience and have their own skin in the game of the experience of the consequences of their decisions, they will discount the harms experienced by others and make bad decisions for bad reasons.
> I don't want to have to figure out the fast past lane system and be waking up at 7am or whatever to log into some app to try to snag a slot.
Here, I've done the "work" for you.
The system is: if you have a pass, you can book an arrival window for one (1) ride, and you'll be allowed onto that ride if you show up during the window. You can repeat this as often as you like throughout the day, except that you can't book the same ride twice in one day. Disneyland has 14 rides that use the system, so you can use the pass up to 14 times in a day if you want to ride every one of those rides. If not, your limit will be lower.
You cannot ever book a slot in advance. You can't book a slot before you're admitted into the park, and you can't have more than one booking at a time. So there's no such thing as waking up early to try to beat the crowd to a slot, except to the extent that if you actually go to the park early the crowd will be smaller. Smaller enough that you probably won't want to consume your pass at that time, because the regular line is short.
I don't think the system can get a lot simpler than "you can use this once per ride, and if you have nothing booked, you can book one thing".
The fact that you have to reserve a slot suggests that there is more fast pass interest than Disneyland is willing to accommodate. There are two reasons they might limit fast pass arrivals: (1) they make each other slower; (2) they make the regular line slower. I don't think the carefully rationed fast pass arrivals are going to make much of an impact on the regular line. If they do start to do that... fast passes aren't fixed-price products. Disneyland will raise the price.
I did not read your post.
It seems to me the purpose of the system is to:
1) Trick poor people into buying tickets and then realizing they can't actually ride the rides.
2) Get rich people who have committed to being at the park to decide that surge pricing makes sense once you are sunk cost committed.
3) Get childless Disney adults with disposable cash to dump it in the park because they have the free time to exploit this system.
Feels like the same logic I see at the movie theater trying to get people to buy overpriced popcorn or the 7/11 trying to get people to buy cigs and scratch offs. I can smell "spreadsheet asshole praying on human weakness" when I see it.
Maybe you should read the post.
Imagining the system you don't want is unlikely to persuade anyone who's aware of the system that exists.