alt Hacker News> Personal AI agents cause a local optima while overall increasing cost for rest of the travelers.
This has nothing to do with AI. Any sale pricing cause the average non-sale price to go up! This is why many companies outright refuse to participate in sales outside of damaged / opened goods.
> Now United isn't against offering a $50 flight to customers who they deem "worth it" - they just don't want it to be anyone who can run an MCP connector.
I don't understand the premise you're painting here.
Airlines lower the price because they have unfilled seats that are not selling at the current price. The price is lowered as an intentional choice to reduce margins on that seat because making any margin over the fuel cost of that passenger's additional weight is worth more than getting nothing at all.
They aren't thinking about the customer and how lil' Timmy wants to visit his dad in Idaho, they're maximizing profit by rapidly adjusting their service to the supply-demand curve.
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> This is why many companies outright refuse to participate in sales outside of damaged / opened goods.
Do “many”? The companies I’m familiar with who used to do this have largely abandoned the practice due to consumer expectations of sales.
> Airlines lower the price because they have unfilled seats that are not selling at the current price
This is rarely the case for popular routes. Airlines lower the price for popular routes to increase margin per utilization which is why skiplagging is not encouraged because it decreases the margin per utilization.
> they're maximizing profit by rapidly adjusting their service to the supply-demand curve
if they were doing that, they would be booting off customers who paid less than those on the wait list.