Disney reverses some changes in policy and costs at US parks

Which is where the guide rails are supposed to come in but the feds allowed Ticketmaster and Live Nation merge for some reason.

I always reference this John Oliver episode whenever this topic comes up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Y7uqqEFnY

Jeff:

Making a reservation, often the same day, doesn't seem like a heavy lift to me.

I'm talking more about the process for buying Genie+, figuring out the system, figuring out it's not automatically guaranteeing you get to do anything, not being able to get the reservation through the app even though you have to do everything else with the app, not automatically getting the reservation with a WDW on site hotel reservation, realizing there are pages and pages of strategy just to get a reservation in a restaurant or to have the ability to ride the new ride when it's Virtual Queue only. For you or me it's logging into the website to tell them we're coming and trying again tomorrow if (when) the Virtual Queue for Tron fills up in less than ten seconds at 7am. But for the once every 5 years folks Chapek was attempting to court, it's genuinely quite a bit of information and a process to do the things compared to any other theme park destination, and even after the money is spent it is often difficult or impossible to do all of the things.

The fact of the matter is that Capitalism is the worst economic system out there, except for all the other ones that have been tried.

The biggest problem seems to be that markets are dysfunctional because there isn't enough interaction between buyers and sellers to set price. Most of the time the seller sets the price and the buyer pays it...and when price hikes and value reductions become egregious, not enough buyers refuse to pay for the product to force a price reduction or restoration of value. Sometimes it's because producers have gotten really good at making sneaky packaging changes so that the 11 ounce juice bottle looks to be the same size as the 16 ounce pop bottle.

With Disney there is a different problem with regard to market responsiveness. So many trips are planned so far in advance that in the short term a price hike will have little impact on customer behaviors. In the short term. What's dangerous about that is that if you show people a bad time, there's always the risk that they won't come back. Today's customer-hostile decisions won't be an issue in the short term, but may have a longer term negative impact that can be difficult to recover from. Especially when Mr. I'm Never Going Back Again tells everyone he knows what a lousy experience he had.

Free markets are great. The problem is that they really only work if they're also fair, and that's where the system tends to break down.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

BrettV:

...and even after the money is spent it is often difficult or impossible to do all of the things.

Which means you'll come back again and spend more money!

What is "fair" and who determines it?

I think looking for a simple answer to that, knowing there isn't one, is used as an argument against various forms of regulation.

Have a bran muffin.

Oddly enough, Jeff, I think the exact same argument is also made in favor of various forms of regulation.

I submit that there is really only one thing that truly makes a free market "fair", and that's competition. And it's competition on both sides of the transaction. In 1:1 transactions, it's pretty straightforward. You offer something of value, I offer something of value, and at some point we agree on a transaction that balances our offers. And what moderates our transaction is the fact that we can both choose to deal with someone else who better matches our requirements...in a typical widget vs currency deal, the party with the widget can chase a customer willing to spend more currency, while the party with the currency can chase a vendor offering a cheaper widget. And if there's enough of this going on, there will eventually emerge a 'market price' for that particular widget. That's the entirety of Econ 101 right there.

In the real world, though, it's not quite so obvious. Options are sufficiently limited and customers sufficiently diverse that the vendor is able to offer a "take it or leave it" price and enough customers will "take it", either because they don't care about price or because they are willing to pay more, or because they can't or won't accept a substitute, that the "leave it" customers don't have any real influence over the market. The extreme examples of this are health care and higher education...both products that are priced and paid for in such a way that the consumers don't directly care about price, with the direct result that pricing is pushed high simply because the producers can do it largely without any (market) penalty.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

The calculus is definitely different with non-essential things, which works in Disney's favor, and obviously Ticketmaster. But you're right, because without competition you have a monopoly, and that's never good. I'm struggling to cover costs for this site because I don't really have any option beyond Google, unless you want a bunch of video ads floating all over the page like other sites (no one wants that). For-profit healthcare is a great example too, because if our appendix bursts, it's not like we can shop around for treatment. And this is what I mean by having to account for nuance, because if one becomes an ideologue, it's hard to see the individual situations where one side of the transactions are broken.

To be clear though, I don't think Disney is in this situation. Everything they sell is completely optional, and they have competition.

"optional" depending on who you talk to.

There are FAR too many people out there who view a trip to WDW as their "god given rights" and then complain about how it costs them less to go to the local Six Flags and Disney should lower their prices so they can take their crotch fruit to see the Mouse like they promised them.

There is a certain swath of the culture in which a Disney trip is something between a right of passage and a class marker of consumption. For those folks, it feels like a requirement.

It may be a rite of passage, but it's definitely not a right. Isn't it interesting though that Disney is so ingrained in the culture that people perceive it that way. That's a problem most every company would like to have.

Darn it all. I get that wrong every time. #spelling #homonyms #homophones

We have discussed that issue a lot here. Its not a right or requirement. Whether its a rite of passage depends on your perspective. I know a lot of people who have never been to a Disney park, have no interest in going and their kids are just fine. YMMV.

Free markets are great. The problem is that they really only work if they're also fair, and that's where the system tends to break down.

I submit that there is really only one thing that truly makes a free market "fair", and that's competition.

That's a much narrower view of fair/unfair than that of many people seeking various types of intervention. Someone has to determine that intervention is needed. Then determine what type of intervention to employ. Without some level of understanding, interventions won't work and may be counterproductive. Solutions are often counterintuitive. And few things are simple with single causes operating in a vacuum.

But for the Disney is an unaffordable right/rite/requirement crowd, what do they want to happen? If Disney lowers its prices, demand will increase and the parks will be miserable and/or tickets will book out far in advance if Disney tries to manage crowds (without a pricing lever). No doubt they would complain about that. Do they want subsidies to allow them to go? To be entertained? And subsidies tend to result in more of what is being subsidized and higher prices for it. Harder to afford for more people. Then what? More subsidies?

For what it’s worth, I think its function as a class status marker (going to Disney tells others in your circle that you are the sort of person who can afford to go to Disney) is a bigger contributor to the entitled outrage about being “priced out”.

GoBucks89:

But for the Disney is an unaffordable right/rite/requirement crowd, what do they want to happen?

It doesn't matter what they expect. No one is asking to regulate Disney. Some people can't afford certain things, and especially when it comes to luxury items, that's life.

Brian Noble:

its function as a class status marker

On a sympathy slider, seems less valid than the rite of passage crowd. And some in the latter group may well actually be in the former (matter of marketing). Though none of that is to say sympathy is generated for either crowd.

GoBucks89, that's intended to be a very broad view of what makes a market "fair". To distill a very complicated reality into a relatively simple concept. Remember, competition doesn't just mean additional producers in the market.

The real point is that to truly be "fair", neither the producer nor the consumer should have an outsized advantage over the other, and that manifests itself in a variety of ways. That's where the whole "monopolies=bad" thing comes from. The thing is, for anything that isn't a true commodity (and that list of items grows ever shorter with the commodification of manufacturing, where every toaster sold in the US comes off the same production line out of the same Chinese factory), you're going to have some level of monopolization. Sure, Disney has competitors, some of whom are capable of offering a similar level of experience. But none of them can offer the Disney experience, whatever that means to the consumer. To the economist, Disney is one of many options in many categories. To the consumer who only wants to do Disney, it's a monopoly. That's what product differentiation is for: to gain monopoly status in the mind of the consumer even if you're providing a competitive product.

The question is, at what point does price or value push the consumer to just pick something else? That is, what does it take to make that kind of market competitive?

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

To me, being that broad isn't helpful at all and just begs the question. But ultimately well beyond the scope of this thread.