It's funny, I booked a flight with Ryanair only about an hour ago - out of pure desperation - first time in 15 years.
I remember them being crafty, but I have to admit I was surprised by the level of tactics ... that is to say, what they are still allowed to get away with given European / UK consumer law.
Not to mention that a 20kg bag and hand luggage cost me significantly more than the fare itself. They even had upfront "package deals" that would have actually worked out more expensive - bundles of nonsense benefits.
In Australia most of this kind of borderline deceptive selling has been stepped on, to the point that you hardly see it any more.
My story wasn't with Ryanair, but I used to use Skyscanner to find the cheapest ticket, which is usually from a reseller agent instead of the airline (and whatever savings one made was wasted with time reading the 1-star reviews of how shit they are and then convincing oneself "Oh it'll be fine.").
One of these sites offered the ticket for dozens of Euros cheaper, and allowed me to go through the booking process until the end: I entered my CC, hit "Buy", and the next page was "Oops, the flight is no longer available at this price. The price now is: [the same price as booking with the airline]. Would you like to complete the purchase with this new price anyway?".
Fucking hell, it pissed me off so much that I said no and booked it with the airline after all.
I spent most of my professional life working in various roles in aviation, which included several years in a customer facing position at an airport.
I'd recommend never ever using reseller agents. They frequently mess up tickets, they sell tickets that don't exist at all, and most of them won't forward your contact info to the airline's system, so if there's a problem or delay you'll never receive the notification from the airline. (Including coupons, hotel room offers in case of cancellation and other stuff)
The airlines may be bad but the resellers are worse.
I've had similar bad experiences with hotel resellers. You book a hotel with Expedia and roll into a foreign town at 11 pm after changing a flat tire on the way and the hotel says "we never heard of you and we are full."
I've never been stranded when I've contacted the hotel directly, via their website or the phone. Sometimes a glitch does happen, but when it does the hotel will call around on your behalf and find you a room.
The biggest problem, IMO, is that if you buy from a third party when shit hits the fan you have to rely on that third party. This is still a problem even with reputable travel agents like Amex and Chase. Even in the best case scenario where the agent is actually good, having to get a flight changed via a phone call with some agent who might or might not answer promptly and might or might not be able to work quick enough to win a race of rebooking after a cancelled flight before next best one fills up is just asking for a horrible experience. If you book with the airline directly they have a lot more leeway and power to unfuck your situation promptly.
Save your points and use them on hotels instead, where the experience is just as risky, but at least fails in a less spectacular way when it goes wrong e.g. unless you're booking with an agent in a high demand area where there are NO hotels you usually can leverage a backup plan a lot easier than if you are stuck in an airport.
In my experience, the reseller agents don't even offer better prices these days.
So I'll typically use a service like Google Flights to find a flight, pick an itinerary, but then go to the airline's web page to book the flight directly.
Same for hotels. Find a hotel on Expedia, then book with the hotel directly.
I've seen too many horror stories of people booking through a reseller, and if something goes wrong, the reseller tells you to talk to the hotel/airline while the hotel/airline tells you to talk to the reseller.
Yeah, after all these dumb dark patterns of low price on the price comparison site and a different price after passing all the stupid lies and upsell attempts of the reseller websites, I nowadays book with the airlines directly.
> In Australia most of this kind of borderline deceptive selling has been stepped on, to the point that you hardly see it any more.
Yeah most of the EU steps on this but Ireland is deep in the pockets of big tech. Their privacy regulator is really weak for example, on purpose. That's why all the big techs have their HQs there.
I guess this attitude extends to Ryanair too. We have this thing in the EU where companies need to be legislated in only one member state but some like Ireland abuse this privilege for national gain. It's not just Ireland though. Holland facilitates EU tax dodging with them, Malta sells EU passports to rich foreigners etc.
Spain does sometimes still manage to put the thumbscrews on them though. Like banning charging for hand luggage.
Booked one a few months ago. Triple read everything before clicking anything and managed to get through it without adding anything extra, only needed carry-on that was included. Hard to tell if some things are required or not, usually well hidden free option somewhere. Then if you try to check in to early you must pay, but if you do it just 24h before it's free.
Last time I had close call with a slightly oversized backpack (but not overly full so could easily fit) and they pointed out that some straps we're sticking out through the openings in their thing which I had to push back in...
No doubt quite a few folk with the same question. Keen to understand performance tradeoffs.
Obvious comparison note would be that the "new" method currently enjoys somewhat limited browser support (no Firefox without a flag, and only since Safari 26)
Great evolution story. Also love seeing what can be achieved by stepping outside design lines, re. centred, symmetrical UIs. Makes me want an apple watch ;)
As an aside there's a screenshot in the article showing the Hidden Valley at Glen Coe, which happens to be one of my favourite short walks in Scotland.
A less happy aside of that aside is the house at the base of the valley. I used to look at it dreamily as we drove past, always closed up, nestled by itself in a remote nook between the mountains. What an extraordinary place it would be to live. The park for the hike was only a couple of hundred metres up the road. A few years later I recognised the house in a Louis Theroux doco, when he travelled there with its owner - TV personality Jimmy Saville. Wow. And then a few years later again, after I'd returned to Australia, it came out, posthumous, that Saville was one of the UK's most prolific child and sexual predators. Horrific stuff. The name and outline of the cottage structure can actually be seen at the top of the map in the screenshot.
Funny coincidence - I visited that valley for the first time just last week, on my way to the Isle of Skye.
And as a further coincidence, I met Jimmy Saville about 25 years ago. I was in Leeds hospital after a heart operation, and this old and somewhat scruffy track suited guy just walks in to the ward and starts talking to me. I had no idea who he was. After he left, a nurse asked “did you speak to Jimmy?”. It was creepy and unnerving seeing first hand how he just got to roam around.
I can confirm, the graffiti-covered Saville residence has almost completely been demolished.
I read this whole post silently mouthing a "CSP" mantra as each new vulnerability was discovered, years apart no less. Elated when I got to the revelation towards the end.
But for all my self righteous bluster the inline version was news to me. Hacker news. Awesome. Thank you.
"In all of our interactions, the DoW displayed a deep respect for safety and a desire to partner to achieve the best possible outcome," Altman said in a post on X."
As others have pointed out a mix of express (and even "rocket") services, rather than physically removing bus stops, already works wonders outside of the US.
Combine that with improvements to things like waiting areas (i.e. introducing shade), frequency of services, price (in my closest city they introduced essentially free public transport for all - it's been a boon), and you've got something that can be effectively weighed against other forms of transport.
No it doesn't fit all situations and people, but it serves the majority well.
The article mentions that other countries have much higher spacing between stops to begin with, so in that sense they don’t remove bus stops today because they already have.
I set a (very) old phone into child mode total lockdown with only YouTube music installed to make use of my family account and streaming playlists ... only to find it (the YTM app) wouldn't open due to the social media ban in Australia (legislation which I otherwise - controversially - completely support).
YouTube Music would be great, but there's no official API for third-party apps. Only unofficial libraries that scrape the web interface – not something I'd want to build an app on. Too fragile and could break anytime.
Interesting about Australia – sounds like the social media ban for under-16s now includes YouTube, but YouTube Music as a pure streaming service should be separate. The ban targets social platforms with feeds and interactions. Might be worth checking if YouTube Music specifically falls under it or if the device lockdown is catching it by accident.
That's fair. Lack of any official APIs outside of the standard YT data API is frustrating. Would love to see / hear about a rosetta stone for the streaming services to allow easier migration (and integration) between them. Though I guess that's not in anyone's interest.
Also regards the ban, from what I've read Google have included Music by choice. Potentially as a bargaining chip.
A universal standard for streaming services would be amazing – but yeah, lock-in is the whole point for them. Even basic stuff like playlist export is intentionally painful.
Interesting that Google included Music by choice. Classic move – comply broadly, then negotiate exceptions later. Thanks for the info!
I remember them being crafty, but I have to admit I was surprised by the level of tactics ... that is to say, what they are still allowed to get away with given European / UK consumer law.
Not to mention that a 20kg bag and hand luggage cost me significantly more than the fare itself. They even had upfront "package deals" that would have actually worked out more expensive - bundles of nonsense benefits.
In Australia most of this kind of borderline deceptive selling has been stepped on, to the point that you hardly see it any more.
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