And now, Jet Airways.

[r_ness]

I was never a huge fan of the airline but as is usual with airlines I'm on the side of more competition.

From https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47905089:Passengers are stranded in India and around the world after Jet Airways suspended all international flights

Comments

[achinhibitor]

I remember once reading an odd article in Technology Review, which was at the time "the MIT journal of technology and policy". The author argued that airline deregulation (in the US) had been a failure because over the first five or so years, the airlines had lost an enormous amount of money. He didn't bother to explain why airlines losing money was a bad thing, though.

[r_ness]

Yeah. I mean, failure for *whom*? I suppose he invested in the airlines in question.

I've often repeated the statement I read a while back on one of the airline forums about money-losing airlines. It went something along the lines of "flying on a money-losing airline can provide a great experience, as long as you have travel insurance that covers bankruptcy". After all, your trip is being subsidized.

It's the bikeshare and ridesharing businesses writ large: someone else is paying. Your experience is better than it would be without the subsidy. You either pay less than the market rate or get more for your money. What's not to like?

I can see that investors might not be overly happy about this situation but that's hardly a failure for me as a passenger.

[achinhibitor]

It's a transfer of wealth from airline shareholders to airline passengers

[r_ness]

I'm very comfortable about transfers of wealth to me from investors. I even rode some of those bikeshare bikes for a while, until I ran out of free money plus the $10 I put in.

I haven't ridden the e-bikes because the pricing around here is ridiculous. On an hourly basis the e-bikes cost as much to rent from Lime as a Honda Civic does to rent from Zipcar.

Nonetheless they appear to be losing money on e-scooters, which is pretty amazing:

https://oversharing.substack.com/p/shared-scooters-dont-last-long

https://oversharing.substack.com/p/bird-raises-prices-to-trim-to-scooter

It's particularly amusing to me that much of the money is coming from Softbank. I mean, I'm glad to spend Masayoshi Son's money all day every day, and twice on Sundays.

I just wish we could come up with a much more direct way for him to funnel money to me. :)

[achinhibitor]

I just wish we could come up with a much more direct way for him to funnel money to me. :)

"And more of it, too!"

But it's not so surprising that the Depression/WW II generation was security-oriented and feared employers going broke. We're the next generation, and have never known really bad times, so we don't mind competition that is a little redder in tooth and claw.

[r_ness]

Social benefits like unemployment insurance probably help with that as well.

That might come under the heading of "not knowing really bad times".

[r_ness]

Apparently Softbank gets much of its money from the Saudis.

From https://www.ft.com/content/5bf2948a-de1a-11e8-8f50-cbae5495d92b:

"Saudi Arabia is the biggest investor in the $100bn Vision Fund, with a $45bn commitment from the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund. The Vision Fund is the largest private pool of money ever raised, and has backed companies from Uber to WeWork to food delivery service DoorDash."

[achinhibitor]

Probably the correct word is "dirigiste".