alt Hacker News> Oh sure, all the web searches and ads are targeted in a way that you're going to end up at the same place a travel agent would have put you, but you can perceive the freedom of choice along the way!
And you can enjoy all the risk and liability for mistakes made along the way, too, which is where the actual optimization happened in the economy.
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Just buy insurance! Oh, it's up to you to understand what it actually covers, and it's about as much as the room/flight costs but won't you feel better about your choice?
What did travel agents do when they made a mistake? I don’t think they reimbursed people?
> And you can enjoy all the risk and liability for mistakes made along the way, too, which is where the actual optimization happened in the economy.
And you can enjoy overpaying for a lower quality vacation if your travel agent is unscrupulous and getting kickbacks from vendors.
That is the actual optimization that happened, I can do more research and communicate directly with vendors.
Those that don’t want to are still free to pay extra for a travel agent.
Similar example in the grocery stores with the self checkout. In the past if the employee did a scanning mistake, worst case the manager / customer would be mad.
Now that you do it yourself if you mis scan organic tomatoes as regular tomatoes you are freaking going to jail.
Ok exaggerating a bit, but having shoplifting in your record can be life changing, specially for immigrants