[HN Gopher] America's favorite family outings are increasingly o...
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America's favorite family outings are increasingly out of reach
Author : gmays
Score : 251 points
Date : 2022-07-19 13:20 UTC (9 hours ago)
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| mdavis6890 wrote:
| Things, including economic things, always change over time. The
| mix of goods and services that we produce will change, and prices
| with them. Many things will get more expensive or become
| unavailable, while other things will get cheaper and more
| plentiful. And new things will be invented.
|
| Televisions and microwaves are cheaper now. Intuitively I would
| have thought cars are cheaper too - but a moment of research
| indicated they're actually more expensive. Food and energy have
| become much cheaper as well. (Talking about over decades)
|
| It's very easy to cherry-pick any one thing to focus on and say
| "Look how bad/good it is now." - but that doesn't make it
| meaningful or right to do so.
| strix_varius wrote:
| > Intuitively I would have thought cars are cheaper too - but a
| moment of research indicated they're actually more expensive.
|
| This surprised me so I looked into it -
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_longevity#Statistics
|
| - in 1960 a car's lifetime was about 100k miles, while today
| it's about 200k.
|
| https://www.thepeoplehistory.com/60scars.html
|
| https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a38748092/new-car-average-...
|
| - in 1960 the average new car cost $2,752 ($26,100 in 2022
| dollars) - in 2022 the average new car costs $47,000
|
| So in 1960 you'd pay about 26100/100000 = $0.26 / mile, whereas
| in 2022 you'd pay about $0.24 / mile. There'd also be
| qualitative differences in the experience like performance,
| comfort, safety, entertainment, etc.
|
| On the whole it's not a lot cheaper (somewhere around 8%), but
| it turns out our intuitions were correct.
| parkingrift wrote:
| Extremely skeptical of the MLB estimates.
|
| You can see the Yankees play the Pirates this fall in NYC for $24
| for four (4) people. $22 in round trip subway fare to anywhere in
| NYC. $54 on food and drink. $100 total.
|
| If you feel entitled to seeing Red Sox vs Yankees in prime time
| in October for the same relative price your grandparents paid...
| well I don't know what to tell you.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Parking is where they get you the most, then on top of that for
| out of town destinations, you would also have to rent a car. I
| was lucky enough to be able to walk to MLB games with my father
| when I was a kid. It just goes to show how valuable public
| transportation is, even when you're taking the bus to the movie
| theater, or popping on some light rail from the airport to
| wherever most of the hotels are.
| anon291 wrote:
| The root cause behind this is childlessness. Families were bigger
| in the 60s so things had to be cheaper for families to afford it.
| Now, there is sufficient demand for these 'family' activities
| amongst childless adults, who have more income per individual,
| and a higher willingness to spend on these entertainment
| activities (whereas families with kids often spend income on
| kid's education and activities). This has the effect of making
| things even worse for children.
| nerdponx wrote:
| This is such a stretch.
|
| > Families were bigger in the 60s so things had to be cheaper
| for families to afford it.
|
| Consider that perhaps your causality is reversed. Families are
| smaller now because existing is more expensive relative to
| wages.
| anon291 wrote:
| > Consider that perhaps your causality is reversed. Families
| are smaller now because existing is more expensive relative
| to wages.
|
| Perhaps we're both right, and it's a cycle. Smaller families
| cause these kinds of expenses to grow relative to wages,
| which cause smaller families. These sorts of things are not
| unheard of.
| nerdponx wrote:
| It's very very rare that decreasing demand increases the
| cost of something, unless it's been entirely replaced by
| something else (e.g. horse carriages vs. cars), which --
| when it does happen -- is mostly due to supply side
| reconfiguration that leads to higher marginal costs.
|
| So no, I don't think your causal direction is plausible
| without strong corroborating evidence.
| cptskippy wrote:
| > The root cause behind this is childlessness.
|
| That is the current narrative being pushed by conservatives.
| All our problems are due to selfish individuals not having
| children. I suppose we can blame inflation too on all those
| child less dual income families as well? I mean if they had
| less money they wouldn't be able to buy up all the things and
| prices would be lower for everyone right?
| anon291 wrote:
| I'm actually not making any value judgement. It's an
| observation. One of the effects of fewer children is that
| companies that previously marketed towards children, now
| market mostly towards adults that are still able to live out
| their childhood fantasies.
|
| onestly, when it comes to families, I actually think this is
| a good thing, because Disney, MLB, etc, are terrible
| organizations that don't deserve much support. Disney happily
| kowtows to China's every whim, and its new content is
| ultimately not that great (save for a select few films).
| Professional sports has ruined our education system in this
| country (school-to-pro-sports pipeline), that
| disproportionately affects minority males, who are encouraged
| to spend more time attempting to achieve a dream that they
| are unlikely to (making a sports team) and little time doing
| those things that will almost certainly help them in life.
| cptskippy wrote:
| > One of the effects of fewer children is that companies
| that previously marketed towards children, now market
| mostly towards adults that are still able to live out their
| childhood fantasies.
|
| Companies aren't shifting focus away from Children so much
| as they're expanding their focus beyond them.
|
| While the birth rate in the US has been in decline since
| the early 70s, the population and the number of children
| has largely grown. It's really only in the last 5-10 years
| that we've seen a decline in the number of children.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr70/nvsr70-17.pdf
|
| The reason you see companies like Disney expanding into
| China and abroad is because they're chasing growth, not due
| to decline. The market always demands growth.
| jhbadger wrote:
| As for a baseball game, try going to a minor league game -- it's
| far cheaper and everybody including the players seems to be
| having more fun than at a major league game.
| reddog wrote:
| When did a family trip to Disney World become the American middle
| class Hajj? My kids have been to every national park west of the
| Mississippi but are alone among their friends in having never
| have visited Orlando to venerate the rodent. When people find
| this out they act like we should be reported to child protective
| services.
| bel_marinaio wrote:
| The sheeple have been corporatized. They sit in front of the
| idiot box for 21+ hours weekly soaking up the advertisements
| telling them what to buy and where to vacation. Most people are
| boring and unoriginal. They just want do the same things as all
| the other sheeple
| jerrybender wrote:
| I assume that you only count the contiguous western United
| States. Some Alaska national parks are very inaccessible.
| medvezhenok wrote:
| I think that part of the effect is headline cost inflation. All
| sorts of businesses are incentivized to price discriminate (since
| people now have vastly different purchasing power), and they
| usually do it by setting a high default price and then giving all
| sorts of discounts to groups that they want to incentivize.
|
| This happens in medicine (headline rate vs insurance negotiated
| rate), it happens in education (sticker price vs average price
| paid), it happens on Amazon (see the preponderance of coupon
| clipping / sales to get around price tracker sites like
| camelcamelcamel).
|
| For a few more examples: tinder discriminates directly (older
| people charged more), onlyfans runs promotions for new members
| (just like cable companies). Traveling escorts will change their
| rates depending on the cities that they're touring, based on what
| the market will bear... etc. In the 1940s and 50s you could get
| big problems for trying to generate big profits - and there was a
| 90% excess profits tax in the 40s to drain all of the excess
| fiscal stimulus back out of the economy. As the after-effects of
| those policies wore off, price discrimination came back.
|
| Price discrimination is the name of the game in today's world.
| allturtles wrote:
| I'm seeing a bunch of comments along the lines of "it's not that
| expensive to go to the movies/baseball game if you just don't buy
| any food or drinks."
|
| I feel like what we're seeing across a wide range of industries
| is a business model where the 'bare bones' experience can be had
| for a somewhat reasonable price, but a variety of things that
| used to be considered a standard part of the experience (popcorn
| at the movies, a soda or beer and hot dog at the baseball game,
| an assigned seat and a carry on bag on the airplane) are now
| 'extras' with highly inflated prices and fantastic profit
| margins.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I went to a rock festival this weekend with a lot of bigger
| rock names from the 00s and 10s. Three day tickets were
| $200-ish, not /awful/ but a bit pricey.
|
| One draft of Bud Light was $12. A little take-out sized noodle
| box was $15. Tater tots with cheese was $12. Grocery store
| freezer-grade chicken tenders and fries were $25.
|
| It was absolutely nuts.
| cupofpython wrote:
| >One draft of Bud Light was $12
|
| most are probably aware of this, but a 12pack of budlight
| costs $12 from walmart and a 24-pack costs $19
| JasserInicide wrote:
| You either suck it up and pay inside, or you chug 5 shots
| of vodka in the parking lot before entering. You'll still
| probably pay for beer inside, but you won't mind as much.
| raunak wrote:
| You could always sneak a fifth inside in your underwear.
| Or just mix it in a water bottle.
|
| People need to be more willing to break the rules. It's
| not as if big corporations care about you, why should one
| care about them?
| spike021 wrote:
| My usual movie theater recently had a high school age kid
| staffing the ticket booth when you walk in and a brand
| new sign saying "no outside food or drinks." I used to
| just carry by hand a water bottle and some snacks or put
| it in an old grocery bag. This recent visit, I was told
| outright "no, that's not allowed, leave it in your car."
|
| I was really surprised, been going to this theater for
| probably 5+ years now and this was the first time they'd
| complained like this (maybe the kid just felt he had to
| enforce the rules more than usual, not sure).
|
| So I just went back to my car, took everything out of my
| bag, stuffed it all under my shirt/into my pockets like I
| used to 10-15 years ago, walked back in. No complaints.
|
| Honestly 80% of the time, anything I bring in will beat
| whatever they sell anyway.
|
| And FWIW, the last time I bought a bottle of water there
| for $7 or whatever, I found out during the movie it had
| already been opened/had a broken seal, so it was a waste
| of money.
|
| Meanwhile this last time I brought in a bottle of water I
| bought at the store for maybe a dollar, sealed, etc. No
| problem. Shrug.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Yeah, we pregamed too. We had a shuttle, so no need to
| worry about endangering others.
|
| The festival had a campsite too, which said "NO PILLS
| EXCEPT THOSE IN A PRESCRIPTION BOTTLE WITH MATCHING NAME"
| and about 100 other things they banned such as liquor.
| This being the first time I've been to an overnight rock
| fest, I obliged (other than taking some legal edibles).
|
| I've never been more wrong in my life. The amount of hard
| liquor in the campground was astounding, and (no
| surprise) the amount of weed and plastic containers of
| alcohol snuck in was substantial, too.
|
| They also banned moshing and crowdsurfing, per the
| signage around the festival. Almost every single band
| encouraged pits and crowdsurfing.
| LambdaComplex wrote:
| >"NO PILLS EXCEPT THOSE IN A PRESCRIPTION BOTTLE WITH
| MATCHING NAME" and about 100 other things they banned
| such as liquor.
|
| As someone who's passingly familiar with a small local
| festival's management, I'd be willing to bet that those
| rules are being required by the festival's insurance
| company. Of course, if they actually cracked down on the
| drugs/alcohol, they'd have a lot less people show up next
| year (and management knows it).
| havblue wrote:
| I guess you can justify this if you just think of the price
| of concessions as part of the overall experience. It's really
| a $300 ticket but you get to drink 5 beers and have some bar
| food in the meantime.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| see also: the entire airline industry
| EricDeb wrote:
| Were middle class people really flying around that much in
| the 60s and 70s? I have no idea but I feel like they weren't
| MandieD wrote:
| Pretty sure that middle class Americans rarely flew before
| deregulation in the late 70s. My mom's middle class parents
| packed the kids up in the car and took a few epic road
| trips to visit family in other parts of the country in the
| 60s - flying would have been unimaginable.
| jeromegv wrote:
| Flying got 50% cheaper after deregulation. Before that,
| it was definitely more of a upper middle class thing.
| Going to Europe for a couple weeks was definitely not
| common. https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2022/06/economic-
| regulation-of-the...
|
| But somehow people think that "things were so much better
| before"
| greedo wrote:
| Flying was definitely better back before de-regulation.
| Google Pan American and look at how big the seats were
| and the food served. Much better, but roughly 4x the
| price (comparing LAX to Heathrow).
| bombcar wrote:
| If you pay inflation adjusted prices do you get a similar
| experience today? But even first class is ass compared to
| some of the pictures you see.
| ghaff wrote:
| >But somehow people think that "things were so much
| better before"
|
| Because they often were for the upper middle class.
|
| But not really. A lot of people today would be horrified
| by the grocery stores of the 60s/70s, the safety
| standards of cars, etc.
| notriddle wrote:
| I know it's a cliche to blame all the world's problems on
| wealth inequality, and that a lot of accusations of wealth-
| inequality-problems can be reasonably blamed on other things...
|
| But this one is definitely wealth inequality. They're probably
| making over half their revenue on "whales" that make up only
| 10% of their audience, but they don't want to ignore the rest
| of their audience because (1) they need to continuously convert
| casuals into whales or their audience will eventually just die
| off (2) word-of-mouth marketing is the most effective form of
| marketing, and there just aren't enough whales out there to
| keep something like MLB going all on their own.
| czhu12 wrote:
| The Disneyland example can't be blamed on wealth inequality
| right? Disneyland can only host some number of people at the
| same time, if we were all billionaires, it still wouldn't
| expand the capacity of Disneyland.
| bombcar wrote:
| If Disneyland today can fit 100 guests (example numbers)
| and there are 50 willing to pay $100 for a ticket and
| everyone else will pay $10, the optimal pricing will be
| somewhere below $100 to fill the park.
|
| If there are 500 willing to pay $1k for tickets, they
| should charge $1k or more. The others are now priced out.
| jon_richards wrote:
| I always get an uneasy feeling when I think about this. It's
| like I know we'll point to this later as the clear-cut sign
| that something was going wrong.
|
| The most profitable business model is no longer "sell to
| consumers who can afford it." Sure, freemium is great for the
| people who can't afford it, but it reminds me of a feel-good
| news story about a kid that sold lemonade to raise money for
| their own cancer treatment. Immediate consequences are good.
| Actual implications are horrifying.
| zbyte64 wrote:
| Indeed. We've been told that the current economic system is
| providing better access for all, but when we point out
| specific cases when that is not the case we're then told
| it's providing better quality to fewer people as if that's
| what we were originally promised.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| I disagree with your random choice of causes. I would argue
| it's that there are more people now. While before X number of
| people were so into the limited number of Y, you are now
| competing for Y with 2X people, it Y is more valuable to them
| than to you. If we had twice the number of Disneylands/Pro-
| sports teams/Y's, prices would definitely go down.
| mywittyname wrote:
| It's this + wealth inequality.
|
| The increased population growth means that an event that
| had to be affordable for a median income, now needs only be
| affordable for a 75th percentile income. Since median
| household income is around $68k and 75th percentile is
| 122k. A 75th percentile family can spend $50k on season
| tickets for a sports team, and still live an otherwise
| median income lifestyle.
|
| If wealth inequality wasn't so extreme, then such large
| price caps wouldn't be economically viable.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > They're probably making over half their revenue on "whales"
| that make up only 10% of their audience, but they don't want
| to ignore the rest of their audience
|
| That's probably not true for revenue, but "half" may even
| underestimate the ratio for profit. The world is full of
| those business where nearly everybody is a net positive, but
| the business itself is only viable because a few people make
| them much more massive.
|
| Anyway, they still want to serve all the rest 90% of the
| people because they make for 20% to 50% of their profits.
| That is a very relevant amount of profits, that one just
| don't give up for no reason.
| greedo wrote:
| Even McDonalds had "whales" (yes I know that sounds
| horrible in context). In the 80's, they were very aware of
| customers who frequented the restaurants 2-3x a week. Of
| course, they didn't call them whales, instead using "Super
| Heavy Users," as if that's less offensive.
| scotuswroteus wrote:
| I just went to the best Giants game of the season for $25
| betwixthewires wrote:
| I personally don't mind it. Maybe people should be taking their
| kids to the park, to the woods, camping, to actually _play_
| baseball. Real, substantial experience is cheaper and more fun,
| and it 's better for their upbringing than fake hollow culture
| defined by corporations for your consumption. Fuck Disneyland, go
| to Yellowstone instead.
| jdkee wrote:
| No mention of the fact that it takes two earners in the median
| household to see the raise in inflation adjusted outcome. In
| fact, inflation adjusted wages for the middle class has been flat
| since the 1970s. So it is even worse for the middle-class than
| portrayed in this article.
|
| See https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-
| us...
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| What movie theater are they going to that has $9 tickets? Even
| the non profit theater near my house cost more than that. The AMC
| is 11.20 per adult and 9.09 per kid.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Thanksfully, the part that suffered the biggest increase are the
| parts (food, drinks) that you can bring to the venue or skip
| (parking) by doing things wisely.
| carbadtraingood wrote:
| "Getting the same experience as earlier generations is more
| expensive"
|
| "Thankfully you can just not get the same experience!"
|
| You can only wring so much blood from a stone. The problem of
| declining working class comfort can't be solved by belt
| tightening forever. We, as working class folks need to start
| banding together and reclaiming our portion of profits.
| greedo wrote:
| I only went to Disneyland once in my life. My uncle took me, and
| this was probably in the early 70's. You bought a book of tickets
| for the rides, and of course the best was the "E ticket." I was
| probably around 7 or 8 and once we got in the park I was amazed.
| Then I somehow lost my book of tickets. My uncle was not happy...
| throwaway4220 wrote:
| Why did Disney get $500M in govt subsidies?
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| This is being reflected in the kind of startups that get large
| funding rounds these days.
|
| Its either products made for people who have too much money (NFT
| marketplaces, superfast delivery, expensive consumer goods), or
| for people who have too little (BNPL, medical debt payments, etc)
|
| America - and American entrepreneurs - need to ask themselves
| some tough questions.
| dangus wrote:
| I would say that professional sports costs aren't a great
| representative of cost increases. The amount of ballparks hasn't
| expanded to match the number of fans, and that's really the role
| of minor league teams.
|
| Major League Baseball is doing what is logical here: price
| segmenting their product in ways that wasn't possible in the
| past. The television experience also wasn't so great in the mid-
| century.
|
| Why would you invite people with not a lot of spending money to
| an in-person experience when you can fill the bleachers with the
| wealthiest 10% of the country?
|
| In other words, every seat you fill with someone willing to spend
| $50 at the park is an opportunity cost compared to the person you
| could have sitting there willing to pay $100. Increasing the
| supply of seats might actually lose you money compared to only
| inviting the wealthy and maintaining scarcity.
|
| Same deal with Disneyland and Disney World. There aren't
| proportionally more Disney parks and capacity to meet demand,
| there are still just two destinations in the whole country that
| have expanded relatively modestly in terms of capacity increase,
| but there are lots of other theme parks and attractions that have
| opened or expanded since Disney opened his.
|
| It's entirely logical for Disney to only cater to the top tier of
| spenders, because they run the most desirable and expensive to
| operate per-capita parks.
|
| A point about parking: regardless of inflation, car
| infrastructure doesn't scale. We know this already but most of
| America is in denial and will get into arguments with me about
| how they _need_ their truck to survive.
|
| Car-based infrastructure works fine when your town is a certain
| modest size and not every individual owns one, but our population
| size and car ownership rates have ballooned since the mid-
| century, and now traffic and parking is a squeeze in moderate-
| sized cities that don't have good enough mass transit.
|
| So, in conclusion, I think movie tickets are perhaps a the best
| representation in this article of our relative loss of wealth
| compared to the other items on this list. Only movie ticket
| demographics and economics have truly stayed the same compared to
| these other examples. Movies are still more expensive, because
| it's absolutely true that the typical American family has become
| poorer in many ways.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| IMHO places like Disneyland getting very expensive is actually a
| sign of the large number, and growing, of well-off people.
|
| These places are one of a kind with extremely constrained supply-
| side while demand is huge so prices are relatively high to very
| high depending on the level of access/Hotel you choose.
|
| I am not convinced either that a trip to Disneyland with hotel
| stay was ever within reach of everyone, especially without a
| level of planning and saving for it.
|
| For many people who go there I suspect this is a once in a
| lifetime or once in a generation experience.
| roflyear wrote:
| Incorrect. You can have an increasing segment of the population
| in count but the percentage of that population of the whole of
| the population is decreasing.
| bluedino wrote:
| The amount of money you could spend on your daughter on a
| Disney trip...they have an incredible amount of princess-
| related add-ons.
| pjbeam wrote:
| Oh boy, this exactly. We just did Disney World for my oldest
| and a week of tickets + hotel (definitely not cheapest
| options) was about 10k. Food and drinks another 2k. Add ons
| almost 4k.
|
| You have to pay bribes to Lightning Lane if you don't want to
| spend hours in line. And then of course there's so much
| demand for everything that you basically have to regiment the
| visit entirely with reservations for everything. Overall it
| was a good trip but I should have taken time off afterwards
| to recover from my "vacation".
| bel_marinaio wrote:
| $16k for a one week vacation? Am I reading this right?
| pjbeam wrote:
| Plus airfare but yes.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| As a father to a daughter... you seem to have gone through
| the experience as well! ;)
| tetromino_ wrote:
| > I am not convinced either that a trip to Disneyland with
| hotel stay was ever within reach of everyone, especially
| without a level of planning and saving for it.
|
| In the 1990s my immigrant family was able to afford a trip to
| Disneyworld approximately one year after we arrived in the US.
| We were not poor, but not well-off by any means: only one
| person in the family could legally work, we lived in a not-
| very-good apartment in a not-very-good area, our one car was
| old and used, and all our furniture was acquired from yard
| sales.
|
| And yet we could afford the Disney theme park tickets. (Not a
| Disney hotel, of course; hotels were overpriced even then, so
| we drove 1000 miles to Florida and stayed with a family we
| knew.)
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| That's why I mentioned with hotel stay.
|
| Even today tickets are not cheap but probably still
| affordable as is your experience. Hotel stay bumps the price
| quite a lot.
| bombcar wrote:
| Tickets are about $80 a day, that's certainly within reach
| of almost any family that wants to do it. The tank of gas
| costs more than that.
|
| What there _is_ is many more options; when I was a kid we
| had Disneyland, Knottsberry Farm, Magic Mountain, now
| Southern California alone has added a water park at two of
| those, Legoland, and more.
| aaronax wrote:
| I think everything is just generally "nicer". Stadium seats are
| cushier, parking lots are paved instead of gravel, sidewalks are
| a lot wider, more air-conditioned spaces, better food
| availability, etc.
|
| And people expect more exciting and high quality things now,
| because they have seen a lot (comparably). Someone growing up in
| the 1930s wasn't able to hop on the interstate and go 300 miles
| away for the weekend. Those growing up in the 80s were more apt
| to do that sort of thing, and as mobility has increased,
| attractions (nicer ones) have been built out over the decades.
| Now that person who traveled to all sorts of attractions
| continues to seek out new things -> bigger and better of course.
| More $$$.
|
| The basic, economical attractions are still there if you look.
| Just think smaller scale. Instead of national parks, go to state
| parks. Instead of Disney, go to the state fair. Instead of
| Broadway, find the local theater troupe. Instead of MLB/NFL,
| check out summer or arena leagues. Just because you read about an
| attraction that seems cool, is 1,500 miles away, and is the best
| of breed nationwide, doesn't mean you need to or even get to
| experience it.
| deeg wrote:
| I think you have a good point. In regard to movies, there's an
| additional explanation: so many families have home theaters
| with large flat screen tvs. Cinemas have to compete with that
| and they do so by ramping up the experience, which of course
| costs more.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Yeah I love baseball but I gave up on MLB games. I used to
| travel to do that, now I just watch the home minor league games
| and even travel to other cities to those those teams. I
| realized that I had just as much fun at high school games as I
| ever did at the big guy games so MLB and other minor league
| stuff is quite fun. Similar, I find smaller parks and venues to
| go to. They all coast 1/10 - 1/2 as much as "the big guys" and
| my family has probably more fun as things are less crowded and
| hectic. We still go to some "major" stuff occasionally but not
| like when I was growing up. Things were way less refined and
| cushy and more affordable and less hectic.
| uoaei wrote:
| This doesn't seem like a serious suggestion when the conclusion
| is little more than "austerity for thee, not for me". To shut
| people out of enjoying things because of perceived "luxuries"
| that add very little to the experience seems misguided at best.
| Once the parking lot is renovated, it is not suddenly
| justified. That is an expense that causes prices to rise, thus
| affecting the set of people who can access the service. It has
| real material consequences.
| clairity wrote:
| > "Instead of MLB/NFL, check out summer or arena leagues."
|
| until you go to the drew league to see your friend play, and
| lebron decides to show up (kyrie was a no-show of course). then
| you can't get in for any amount of money because all the
| bandwagoners jam the sidewalks and doorways, not to mention the
| gym. ( _not bitter_ )
| scelerat wrote:
| > Just because you read about an attraction that seems cool, is
| 1,500 miles away, and is the best of breed nationwide, doesn't
| mean you need to or even get to experience it.
|
| FOMO is real and amplified by media. Most medium-size cities in
| the US have plenty of family-friendly activities and
| entertainment.
|
| My grandpa and his brothers would regularly cart their families
| a few miles up a canyon (now a regional park) to play pinochle
| and bocce while the kids raced up hills and splashed in a
| stream. These are things still accessible to most people.
| CPLX wrote:
| That's one way to look at it.
|
| The other way to look at it is that the billions of dollars of
| excess corporate profits plowed into stock buybacks and
| executive compensation packages essentially amounts to wage
| theft from working families.
|
| It's not like the money these families would have used for
| vacation has vanished. It's just buying watches and vacation
| property for their bosses now instead.
| [deleted]
| Balgair wrote:
| I'm not so sure.
|
| We were going through a family member's childhood boxes
| recently and came across all their old HS Football bills from
| the late 1950's. These things were really detailed and really
| good looking. 8 pages, full color, few ads, with loads of
| detail on the players for both teams and coaches. All for a
| public HS football program.
| [deleted]
| bombcar wrote:
| High school sports is _serious business_ in many areas,
| especially Texas, and has been for a _loooong_ time.
| diogenescynic wrote:
| It's the same with colleges--even state universities now have
| luxury dorms with one bedroom/one bath units, massive gyms,
| bigger and nicer libraries and computer labs... and more
| useless programs that kids don't participate in or get much use
| from. At a UC I paid over $1000 a quarter in registration fees
| for those programs that I basically got zero benefits from
| them.
|
| Housing is similar--there aren't many small 1200 sq ft starter
| homes with a one car garage being built--it's mostly big
| McMansions with a list of bullet points. There are fewer and
| fewer affordable entry points to housing and college for the
| working class to start building wealth from.
| johnnyo wrote:
| I think this misses the point.
|
| In the 1960s the "best of breed" entertainment (like Disney)
| was a available to middle class families. They also had the
| option of going to a cheap state fair, or local theatre, or
| minor league baseball.
|
| Now, the middle class can't afford those "best of breed"
| entertainment venues like they used to.
| deanCommie wrote:
| > everything is just generally "nicer".
|
| This is also a big contributor to the rising costs of:
|
| * Housing * Food * Construction
|
| Which all make regular appearances on HN as people wonder why
| they all cost more.
|
| Safety standards are higher, quality standards are higher,
| _convenience_ standards are higher.
|
| Someone buying a house in the 1950's would have gotten an empty
| kitchen, no washer or dryer, no granite countertops, no
| detailing in the back yard.
|
| Meals were simpler - 2 or 3 ingredients, mostly stock items,
| all local.
|
| Roads and buildings are built to last longer, have fewer
| externalities, with more accessibility options for pedestrians,
| better energy utilization, etc.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Cars are enormously nicer and more advanced than they used to
| be, yet have largely just kept pace with inflation.
|
| Housing in Japan has gotten much nicer too, but rent has
| stayed fairly reasonable even in Tokyo (which is huge and has
| still been growing). Plus, even just the cost of land in the
| US is enormously higher now, ignoring any buildings.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| I read an interview with a CEO of Efteling once (basically
| Dutch Disneyland) and they asked him if they would ever
| introduce a "fast pass". His answer was that they would never
| do such a thing because they want don't want their park to
| discriminate between rich and poor. All families are equal
| inside the gates. You can even take your own food and go for a
| picknic.
| xg15 wrote:
| Ok, out of couriosity: How many people who comment in this
| thread would actually have difficulty budgeting a trip to
| Disneyland if they wanted?
|
| (Edit: this was supposed to be a top-level comment, not a
| reply. Sorry!)
| zbyte64 wrote:
| How many people commenting here actually have a family
| greedo wrote:
| I have a family. I could afford to go to either DisneyWorld
| or DisneyLand. I would never do so since the value
| proposition is negative in my opinion.
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| I don't mind paying for good quality experiences. I don't
| like to feel like I'm being fleeced while doing so.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Instead of MLB/NFL, check out summer or arena leagues.
|
| Yeah. Just because some activities have migrated from being
| "everyman" activities that 75% of the population can afford to
| things that 75% of the population _can 't_ afford, doesn't mean
| that reflects the overall reality of the average person's lived
| experience.
|
| Things like MLB/NFL games have greatly outpaced inflation. One
| reason people keep paying for them (aside from other obvious
| factors, like love of the game) is because _we have been
| conditioned to believe that they are things "average" people
| can afford them_ when in fact that hasn't been true for a long
| time.
|
| Even if sports ticket prices didn't outpace inflation, the fact
| is that 50 years ago being at the stadium was the best way to
| see the game. Your other alternative was a tiny, balky TV or
| radio. These days you can see them at home in HD on a giant
| screen that would have seemed like science fiction 25 years ago
| and in fact, because of cable bundling, you may already be
| paying for this privilege even if you don't want to.
|
| (edit: There are still things that are special about the live
| experience, but the home experience has become massively better
| than it used to be)
|
| So like collecting physical music, or attending movies in movie
| theaters as opposed to Netflixing them it makes some level of
| sense for live sports attendance to migrate from "everyman
| activity" to "premium niche thing for diehard fans with
| disposable income."
|
| This is unfortunate in many ways, and it is a loss, but it does
| not necessarily equate to a degradation of average quality of
| life. That would only be the case if average people _no longer
| had any affordable leisure options_ ...if there were no new
| affordable to replace those which migrated upscale.
|
| (FWIW, I say all of this as a sports fan who does enjoy
| attending some games each year)
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| I live in a city that has an AHL hockey team (minor league,
| one division below NHL), and tickets are nearly an order of
| magnitude cheaper than the NHL. (Except for beers, which are
| still laughably overpriced).
|
| Anyway, another industry that has gone this way is the ski
| industry. Back in college, we'd get up early, pile a bunch of
| people in a car, drive 3 hours to the slopes, pay $40 for a
| lift ticket, ski until sunset and drive home. Now, lift
| tickets are incredibly expensive, all the while the ski
| resorts built up amenities like bars and restaurants, spas,
| etc. And they wonder why their customers are trending
| older...
|
| I also believe this is a big part of why college has become
| much more expensive: the amenities arms race.
| tcmart14 wrote:
| Where I live, I am not from here, but I hear the stories
| all the time. It is a big place for skiing. An annual pass
| would be like $100 20 years ago, not it looks to being
| $1500 for an annual pass. I guess technically seasonal, but
| I think they use the annual terminology.
| listenallyall wrote:
| > One reason people keep paying for them
|
| is that there's no substitute. Tom Brady plays in the NFL,
| not USFL. Steph Curry in the NBA, not the d-league. Etc.
| OJFord wrote:
| Also isn't it just way better on television? The angle is
| always (or, to many nines of the time) great, always close.
|
| I'm not big into sports, I go on and off following ice hockey
| (the Leafs), so maybe that explains it, but I just think -
| money aside - going to see a game in person would be an all-
| round inferior experience.
|
| ( _Pay_ for definitely-fast food, queue for public loos,
| potentially surrounded by people I don 't want to watch with,
| ...)
| wvenable wrote:
| It's not fair to say that it's an inferior or superior
| experience. What it is, though, is a _different_
| experience. I occasionally enjoy going to a game in real
| life for that difference.
|
| If your purpose is just to watch a game you have so many
| more options so going in person has become a luxury
| experience entirely because it's no longer _necessary_.
| OJFord wrote:
| That's what I mean by 'not being bigly into sports so
| maybe that explains it' - perhaps I should try it some
| day, but the 'what you can't get at home' experience of a
| stadium just doesn't appeal to _me_ , personally.
|
| Obviously it does to some people, I didn't mean to
| suggest that stadium-goers are idiots who don't realise
| it's objectively better at home! I just meant 'game-
| watching' - but even there, sibling commenter to you
| makes a point about the rawness of physical contact if
| you're close-up in the stadium.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Also isn't it just way better on television? The
| angle is always (or, to many nines of the time)
| great, always close.
|
| Yeah, absolutely, in a lot of ways. Although, people have
| been saying that since the dawn of TV. =)
|
| There are things that are super special about the live
| experience that are tough to appreciate on TV, although
| they're also tough to appreciate _in person_ unless you 're
| lucky enough to be sitting rather close or just seeing the
| event in a small arena.
|
| The speed and violence of an MLB player mashing a baseball
| in person is something else, if you ever get a chance to
| see it up close. Tennis is another sport where TV doesn't
| do it justice IMO.
|
| Hockey's definitely one that I think can be a little hard
| to follow in person. Although, in the pre-HD days, it was
| REALLY hard to appreciate on TV because it could be damn
| near impossible to see the puck on a fuzzy 15" CRT!
|
| In fact, "I can't follow the puck" was such a common
| complaint in the pre-HD days that I had a failed prediction
| that hockey would massively blossom in popularity once
| everybody had HD. Glad I had no money... I was so convinced
| of this prediction that I probably would have poured all my
| money into buying ownership stake in a hockey team or
| something lol.
| bombcar wrote:
| There is something about _hearing_ the crack of the bat
| in person that cannot be replicated on TV, even with a
| very powerful sound system.
|
| And if you sit in the same seat for a number of games
| over a season, you'll start to anticipate things in ways
| you can't on TV (though the best radio announcers would
| anticipate them the same way).
| mhzsh wrote:
| I wonder, how much of ticket price increases can be
| attributed to resellers? It's not long after tickets are
| released that it seems _everything_ for sale is third-party.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Yeah, for some events.
|
| Ironically, this also makes attending a game _super cheap_
| if you 're willing to deal with the uncertainty of buying
| tickets from an online reseller right before game time (or
| even slightly after).
|
| The uncertainty factor, of course, makes it really tough if
| you're taking e.g. a family to the game. Have fun
| explaining to kids why you're turning around and coming
| home, or why mommmy is sitting 15 rows away because it was
| impossible to get 4 seats located together.
|
| But, for a couple of friends hitting up a game... it can be
| a great way to go.
| brightball wrote:
| As a Clemson fan, I had a really weird experience this year. We
| didn't make the playoffs for the first time in 6 years, instead
| getting picked for the Cheez-It Bowl in Orlando...and it was
| fantastic.
|
| I grew up taking a family trip over Christmas break every year
| to wherever Clemson was playing in a bowl game. This was the
| 90s, so it was never a top tier game for us but the trips were
| always great.
|
| When my kids got old enough to start taking them on these
| trips, it was impossible to justify the $1,000+ cost per ticket
| for each playoff game. Before travel cost was factored in.
|
| Tickets to the Cheez-It Bowl were in the $50-80 range and you
| could pay a little more to get access to the Club Level. Took
| the whole family to the game and the kids loved it. We all had
| a great time. And Clemson won (take that Iowa State).
| bombcar wrote:
| There's something to realize with this - _playoff_ games are
| important to adults and fans, but _kids_ don 't necessarily
| care about the significance of the game; they'll enjoy the
| experience and the play of the game.
| codefreeordie wrote:
| There was a brief window, mostly the 1980s and 1990s, where we
| had the nicer things, but the prices hadn't really gone up yet.
|
| To use the Disneyland example, in the late 1990s, Disneyland
| tickets could routinely be had off-season for $20 and annual
| passes were around $100. Adjust that for inflation, and you're
| still at 1/3 to 1/2 of today's prices. But most of Disneyland's
| expansion and most of the really groundbreaking things were
| already in place.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I'm sorry, but I've been to the State Fair and comparing it as
| a Disney alternative is kind of a joke. State Fairs are
| glorified carnivals, and probably hire some actual carnys for
| the month they are open. To compare that to the rides at Disney
| is really a stretch. You could have at least suggested Six
| Flags like amusement park instead.
|
| Your other points I'll agree with. State Fairs->Disney was just
| too much of a stretch for me to accept.
| aaronax wrote:
| Obviously it is not as good. Disney is literally the best, in
| the wealthiest nation in the entire world. But a state park
| will still entertain a family for a day or two, which may or
| may not be the true goal. Maybe you feel it is necessary to
| show your children the absolute best entertainment...pay up.
|
| (I never went to Disney until I was 25, when I visited for
| free for 1/2 day thanks to a friend who was working there
| seasonally.)
| vel0city wrote:
| To me it really depends on your metrics to determine which
| is "best". If you're really into Disney stories and the
| Disney experience then of course there is no substitute.
| However, I find I get a good bit more enjoyment from other
| parks which focus more on the rides themselves instead of
| the stories, so parks like Kings Island, Cedar Point, Six
| Flags, etc. are far more enjoyable. They're also usually a
| lot cheaper and you can end up riding more rides.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Get off my porch.
|
| Man let people have fun. I've been to Disney World a couple
| of times. It's not that fun with all the crowds and lines
| and such. We all have our own idea of fun. Mine is with
| friends and families having a low stress day at a water
| park, nature hike, minor league sports event and not
| worrying about bragging rights after the "adventure".
| jimbob45 wrote:
| There's a rabbit hole to go down here but the short of it
| is that Disney's willingness to sell out in recent years
| have allowed other parks to steal its claim as the best
| park in the world, particularly German parks.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL_ZVJMF2rA&t=795s
| daveslash wrote:
| Your "State Fair vs Disney" really struck a nerve with some
| people! But I agree with your point. I took your comment to
| generally mean: Things like Baseball games and Disney used
| to be economical and within reach to the common-everyday
| family with a tight budget, whereas now they're out of
| reach for many people. Part of that is because the
| attractions themselves are on an elevated level compared to
| days of yore. These same attractions used to be _shittier_
| than they are today! Shittier made them cheaper, and more
| accessible to the masses. If the common-everyday family on
| a tight budget is willing to settle for a little less-than-
| the-best experience, there are still _plenty_ of options
| available in the form of State Fairs, State Parks, etc...
| Edit: Spelling.
| replicatorblog wrote:
| Disney is really overrated as a park.
|
| I live in NH and the local amusement park, called Canobie
| Lake, has more rides and ride systems than the Magic
| Kingdom. The "themeing" isn't as nice but it's a fraction
| of the cost.
|
| I like the Disney Parks, but you're really paying a heavy
| premium for IP and a potential visit with a Princess. For
| most people your local Six Flags will be a far better
| value for the dollar with not much of a dimunition of the
| experience.
| kjgddhnbc wrote:
| Lol Disney is a cult! If you say anything bad about it
| people come out of the woodwork to defend the mouse. I
| was raised outside of the cult but I have dear friends
| that are a part of it. Totally rational people until you
| level any criticism towards Disney, which is especially
| crazy because most of these folks are normally anti
| corporate types, but Disney gets a pass for some reason.
|
| Now, I don't enjoy amusement parks and never did, and
| don't feel strongly about Disney media, so it's just
| amusing to me, especially seeing it play out on HN
|
| I'd rather go to a state park than Disney lmao
| bin_bash wrote:
| For me it's more about just how boring state _fairs_ are.
| Maybe if you have young kids that want to pet a goat or
| are really into fried oreos on a stick.
|
| You said "state park" which is a very different thing
| than what GP was talking about. I like Disney alright but
| spending time in nature at a state park can be just as
| fun IMO. State fair though? Count me out.
| EricE wrote:
| No kidding on the cult thing!
|
| I grew up going to Disneyland, had an annual pass in the
| past and still live fairly close to it; it's an easy day
| trip. Almost went when the new Star Wars section opened -
| until I started to look at the pricing. Would have been
| over $100 a day for tickets (!), never mind all the other
| costs. The last time I went tickets were in the $80 a day
| range and I thought that was nuts.
|
| Obviously they are getting people to still pay it - good
| for them; I'm out. Too many other things to do. And it
| warms my heart to see Universal in Orlando really taking
| on the mouse. Disney has killed Star Wars and Marvel -
| Thor's theater receipts are an utter joke. Disney has
| gotten complacent and lazy; maybe a good fleecing will
| wake them back up.
| nimajneb wrote:
| >I'd rather go to a state park than Disney lmao
|
| Same here, even as a kid I preferred the state park. I've
| never been to Disney, but I've never liked theme parks. I
| do like water parks though.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Growing up in Kansas I never got the Disney thing either.
| Disney was re-running their hits in theaters decades
| after they were originally released, and of course
| knocking out Don Knotts films like "The Apple Dumpling
| Gang". I thought it was a generational thing -- like, of
| course my parent's generation are into Disney.
|
| Moving to California though I was surprised by how much
| traction Disney continues to get with the follow-on
| generations.
| mlyle wrote:
| I've got ambivalent feelings about Disney-- over the
| whole forever-copyright thing, trying to own our entire
| culture, etc.
|
| Their IRL entertainment products-- the resorts/parks,
| travel, etc-- are super-premium. They are not a great
| value. And they are in a weird "bubble".
|
| But man, your kids are entertained and customer service
| is good and everything is fun for everyone.
| neutronicus wrote:
| You think the Disney Cult is bad, try suggesting that one
| can live a full life without ever traveling to Europe
| bbarnett wrote:
| Every time I went to Disney in Florida, loads of rides
| were 30+ minutes, sometimes 1 1/2 hours.
|
| My single thought was "?!", followed by wanting to leave.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I went to Disney in Tokyo during COVID, when they let
| only 5000 people a day in. That was about the level at
| which I thought it was fun, but it still felt kinda busy
| (fastpass rides still sold out).
|
| I have a hard time imagining anyone could enjoy it in a
| normal situation.
| schumpeter wrote:
| Using a fast pass is a must at Disney. Little to no wait
| at every ride. Additionally staying at a Disney resort
| let's you stay an hour after everyone else and then even
| without the fast pass you cruise thru every line.
| vel0city wrote:
| I got extremely lucky going to Disneyland during a
| massive off-peak week, right at the beginning of
| September but just after the Labor Day holiday. Every
| ride was practically walk up. The only real wait was for
| the new Star Wars ride which had only recently opened. My
| wife and I managed to see everything in both parks in a
| day and a half at a pretty leisurely pace.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Another good time to go is early January, just after
| school starts up. It's not hot, and it's not crowded.
| dls2016 wrote:
| Does anyone else think Disney's rides suck, too?
| unbalancedevh wrote:
| One of the points in the article was that there are a lot
| more rides at Disney now. But my thought was, "yeah, but
| you can still only ride 5 of them in a day!"
| dylan604 wrote:
| Which theme park have you been to that has _not_ had long
| lines to the rides?
| neutronicus wrote:
| It's been a hot minute (like 20 years), but the Maryland
| Six Flags used to stay open until 8 or 9 PM in the summer
| and I could ride the coasters with basically no wait
| (waterpark was closed, though).
| Retric wrote:
| I remember doing multiple rides on the same roller
| coaster without giving up my seat as a teen at Busch
| Gardens in Williamsburg. At peak times they had 20+
| minute lines, but I never considered that as worthwhile.
|
| Disney lines are horrific by comparison. It's nice they
| add some theming while you wait, but you will have a far
| better time just skipping the rides unless you want to
| run to something at park open or schedule your day around
| fast pass.
| corrral wrote:
| Horror stories about the lines these days, unless you buy
| the extremely expensive passes that let you skip them,
| are why I'd hesitate to go even for free. I don't get why
| people pay for it. 55 minutes in a line for every 5
| minutes of fun is a shit deal even if it's free, IMO.
| Sounds like hell.
| daveslash wrote:
| Cartmanland /s
| vel0city wrote:
| I've been to a number of parks where it seemed like
| average wait times were closer to 15 minutes rather than
| 1-3 hours. In fact, other than Disney or Universal
| Studios that's generally been the norm, and for a while I
| would go to theme parks multiple times a year.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| Knott's Berry Farm on Thanksgiving used to be one of my
| family's best kept secrets. People have since caught on
| but you you used to be able to walk up to a ride and ride
| it within minutes.
| EricE wrote:
| And the fried chicken at Knott's - used to be amazing
| (late 70's/early 80's). Wonder if it's still a thing with
| them.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >I'd rather go to a state park than Disney lmao
|
| How are we even equating a State Park with theme parks
| like Disney? It originally was suggested as State Fairs
| vs Disney. At least a typical State Fair has some sort of
| amusement rides that tilts in the direction of a Disney
| level theme park. While State Fair to Disney is at least
| apples and oranges, State Parks to Disney is like
| comparing fruits to anything else unrelated.
| potta_coffee wrote:
| Honestly, they weren't shittier, they were better before
| every red cent was squeezed out of the consumer. The
| appeal of Disneyland has really waned for us over the
| years and it's not just the pricing.
| daveslash wrote:
| That's a good point. I think shittier vs. better is
| largely a matter of subjective personal preference. And I
| would kind of agree that they were better before every
| red cent was squeezed out of the consumer. However,
| that's speaking to the _experience_. But in terms of
| _facilities_ , I think things are better now; paved
| parking lots over dirt parking lots, padded seats over
| concrete benches, individual urinals with stall dividers
| over troughs, etc.... Using Disney as an example (I've
| never been), I'm sure that the facilities and hardware of
| the park today are way above where they were decades ago
| (even if the experience is arguably much worse).
| cardiffspaceman wrote:
| Disneyland definitely had troughs in the men's rooms,
| even in recently-constructed buildings. I have been to
| Disneyland nearly every year since 2015.
|
| Also the annual passes, that lots of locals use to make
| multiple trips per year affordable, have been increasing
| in price. Disney wants their visitors to spend money, and
| those who economize using annual passes have proven to be
| on the whole, not the most advantageous customers.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yeah, if they were shittier back then it was because, as
| a country, culturally, we just had worst taste. I mean,
| TV dinners, polyester ... I could go on.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| Yeah I agree. I'm not sure it even makes sense to compare
| state fairs and especially county fairs to theme parks;
| they're aiming at a different experience altogether. They
| have more kitsch like fried butter and tractor pulls, the
| ground tends to be just dirt or whatever pavement was already
| there, and it's all temporary so they feel more like a
| community event.
|
| In contrast there are plenty of regional parks even lesser
| known than Six Flags like Adventureland, Kings Island, Dorney
| Park. These are much more similar to Disneyland (albeit
| scaled down) than they are to a state fair.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| I've noticed that my friends who like Disneyland are "accept
| no substitute" types. They will even talk down Legoland.
|
| So I wonder if it's even meaningful to them to talk about
| alternatives at all. Many of them are mainly visiting that
| one special place for sure every year, so it's not too
| terrible to save the money either.
| hardtke wrote:
| My family is going to Dollywood this summer during a visit
| to Tennessee. A one day ticket is $84, but a 3 day ticket
| is only $114. So, yes, Disneyland is "accept no
| substitutes" pricing.
|
| I would argue that Disneyland should be even more
| expensive. As Yogi Berra once said (paraphrasing) "Nobody
| goes there anymore, it's too crowded." People that
| simultaneously complain about Disneylands price and the
| crowds are delusional.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I went to Dollywood as a kid. One of the "attractions"
| was fishing out of a literall barrel for perch IIRC.
| that's the memory that stuck with me. not the singing and
| the dancing and other things. fish in a barrel. can't
| make that up
| [deleted]
| brewdad wrote:
| It's these types that the park caters to and a significant
| part of why Disney can charge so much more than a
| "comparable" theme park. Personally, I've done the theme
| park thing as a kid and later with my kid and have no
| interest in going to one ever again. My county fair is this
| weekend. It's free and less than 2 miles from my home. I
| doubt I'll attend this year but do go about every other
| year. That's plenty of that atmosphere for me.
|
| Now get off my lawn.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| I will say that because they are permanent as opposed to
| occasional, theme parks have more selection in terms of
| rides like roller coasters or any sort of water rides.
| And there is a whole world of difference in affordability
| and hecticness between Disney and something local like
| Hersheypark.
| ecshafer wrote:
| Eh I would rather go to a state fair than Disney. Its less
| commercial and more down to earth. I went to Disney, and I
| don't really get it. There's cartoon characters and some
| rides with huge lines that are maybe better than the local
| amusement park.If Disney tickets were maybe $30 and there was
| 1/5 the number of people. But its just a tourist trap.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Note that there's quality creep in any established
| institution. Disneyland's attractions on opening day weren't
| all that different from a local carnival:
|
| https://touringplans.com/disneyland/attractions/opening-
| date...
|
| Favorites like Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted
| Mansion didn't open until the late 1960s, a decade after the
| park did, and Space Mountain & Thunder Mountain didn't open
| until the late 1970s.
| scifibestfi wrote:
| But in the spirit of what the OP is saying, most people have
| never been to something like the State Fair, let alone
| Disney. Disney is for the rich. The State Fair is amazing
| from the perspective of those who have been to neither.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >never been to something like the State Fair,
|
| Schools get a day off each year for Fair Day in the North
| Texas area. Obviously, you don't have to go to the fair,
| but each student gets a free ticket, and "most" people
| typically went at least once during their school years. The
| "most" people seems pretty broad brush in my experience.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| Disney was a thing that my pretty average middle-class
| immigrant family was able to do. We would drive down from
| Northern California, stay at a cheap motel, and then go buy
| a general admission ticket. It was never a "for the rich"
| vacation.
|
| In the last 10 years, Disneyland has become an activity for
| wealthy childless millennials, which is almost certainly
| driving up the costs and turning Disney from a middle class
| activity into a wealthy one. Disney, just like any other
| corporation is gladly taking their money.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| >Disneyland has become an activity for wealthy childless
| millennials
|
| What on earth would be the appeal for people that do not
| have children? If I want rollercoasters I'll go to six
| flags.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| People will go to Epcot and "drink around the world" for
| example
| bobthepanda wrote:
| IP-based nostalgia.
|
| The people paying are _really_ into Disney.
| scifibestfi wrote:
| A lot of adults are stuck in arrested development.
| alistairSH wrote:
| I think that's mostly true. A middle-class family can
| still afford Disney, it just becomes a once-in-a-
| childhood thing instead of an every-year thing. Every
| year trips have become something for the wealthy.
|
| Pretty similar for pro sports. Lots of my friends take
| their kids to minor league baseball - for the kid, it can
| be better, as they often have specific kid activities.
| I've always been shocked at the price for Redskins
| tickets/parking/etc. Nationals is a bit less expensive,
| but still not cheap.
| neutronicus wrote:
| Orioles are _dirt cheap_ if you want to take the MARC up
| for some baseball, though. And the MARC itself is 7 bucks
| MandieD wrote:
| Do they still have the very cheap but surprisingly good
| hotdogs right outside the stadium that you can then bring
| in, which keeps prices inside somewhat in check?
|
| (Reminiscing over the $5 student tickets available with
| college ID in the early 2000's)
| alistairSH wrote:
| Nats tickets aren't bad, it's parking/transit and then
| food/drink that are the killers. I guess you can skip the
| concessions, but that's part of the fun, IMO.
| neutronicus wrote:
| Word, baseball isn't the same without a nice cold beer.
| Infernal wrote:
| Yes, my kids love our local AA baseball team. Tickets <
| $15, various bounce houses and generic carnival type
| things for the kids, but something to break up the game
| for a bit when they get tired of sitting. No idea what an
| equivalent MLB outing would cost, but I don't care either
| as the closest one is 3-3.5 hours away, vs. 20 minutes to
| our AA ballpark.
| tcmart14 wrote:
| It could just be my state's state fair, but with 2 kids, I
| could easily spend more money at the state fair to keep
| the, entertained all day compared to disney The only thing
| that would make disney more expensive is the hotel cost. By
| the time you pay 20 bucks for 10 tickets that the kids use
| up on rides and games in 30 minutes, because the carousel
| cost 3 tickets per rider. That game is 2 tickets per round
| and that ride over there is 4 tickets per rider.
|
| That isn't to say Disney is cheap. It isn't cheap either.
| [deleted]
| tomc1985 wrote:
| Ah yes, corporate-sponsored, mandated happiness with
| childrens characters smoothed over for maximum appeal/profit.
| The perfect salve for these troubled times
|
| Give me the carnies any day of the week!
| JohnBooty wrote:
| I mean, they're vastly different but I'd much rather go to a
| state fair or state park. Disney is not objectively better.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| I disagree. Disney are EXPERTS on making magic happen. I
| fought vacationing at Disney tooth and nail, it was so
| expensive. It was one of those life long memory vacations
| that will sustain you when the kids are gone. My fair
| memories are far less intense years later.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Okay. I mean, that's something _you_ like better. That
| does not mean it 's objectively better.
| 9TRHEsEdDwZAySX wrote:
| woodruffw wrote:
| I agree that it's an apples-to-oranges comparison, but maybe
| not in a way that casts Disney World in a positive light: it
| seems like the primary experience of Disney World is queueing
| for hours on rides that are references to things you already
| know, and paying a general "Disney tax" for being surrounded
| by familiar intellectual property. That's some people's
| thing, but it's not mine.
|
| State and Country Fairs, on the other hand, are relatively
| diverse in their attractions: you can do the carnival stuff
| if you'd like, or you can:
|
| * Peruse your state's agricultural and crafts competitions
|
| * Go to the livestock auctions
|
| * See live music by local artists
|
| * Go the the trade halls and look at/purchase goods by local
| businesspeople
|
| * Attend the live performances and competitions (my favorite
| county fair[1] has tractor pulls and pig races)
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutchess_County_Fair
| mbfg wrote:
| Aesop would like a word with you...
| gsk22 wrote:
| That's fine for you, the adult, but the kids are gonna
| wanna go to Disney.
|
| I remember going to the state fair growing up, and it was
| excruciatingly boring waiting for the adults to finish
| looking at cows and trinkets. Whereas our family's trip to
| Disney was tailor-made for kids from start to finish, and
| honestly features pretty prominently among my favorite all-
| time memories.
| scelerat wrote:
| sheet, I remember being eight, and a tractor pull would
| have been just about the best thing ever. And I grew up
| twenty minutes from Disneyland. Loved it as a kid, but
| also loved the Pomona Fairgrounds -- LA County Fair --
| and the drag strip
| neutronicus wrote:
| Yeah, IDK what County/State Fairs people here are talking
| about.
|
| I often went to the Boulder County Fair in grad school
| and that had a Demolition Derby, which my kid would love.
| woodruffw wrote:
| To each their own! I loved the county fair as a child.
| But I wasn't much of a Disney kid anyways (unless we
| count properties that have since been absorbed into the
| Disney IP universe).
| raverbashing wrote:
| Hah yeah I agree
|
| State Fairs can be "fun" (for some definition) but it's very
| different from Disney
| chazzyluc wrote:
| Sure, if I define Mickey as entertainment, the Yankees as
| baseball and the Grand Canyon as nature than anything else
| will be a pale knock-off.
|
| I have great memories of doing all that stuff too but I also
| remember standing in line in 90 degree heat for over an hour,
| seeing grown men getting into fist fights over a game and the
| majority of nature on display being forests of selfie sticks.
|
| Point is that you can do that stuff once in a while and then
| step back, figure out what you like and don't like about the
| experiences and then find cheaper local alternatives that are
| pretty amazing too.
|
| If your goal is to spend a nice summer night walking around
| with the family, seeing interesting stuff while eating
| churros and taking the occasional tea cup ride then you don't
| exclusively have to pay Disney $1,000+ to do it.
| lazerpants wrote:
| To be fair, I went to a Yankees game for $30 last week and
| had okay seats. Food and drinks are expensive Yankee
| Stadium, but you can bring snacks in, so it's actually
| pretty affordable as an occasional activity for a family.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >Grand Canyon as nature than anything else will be a pale
| knock-off.
|
| I've been to the Grand Canyon as well as other canyons like
| Palo Duro and similar. However, they all do pale in
| comparison as a cheap knock-off and none are as grand as
| The Grand Canyon. If you're into outdoorsy type things, you
| cannot _not_ be moved by it. It is one thing that is very
| much appropriately named.
|
| This is not to say that any of the other parks are not
| worth going, state or federal, but if you're a canyon and
| The Grand Canyon exists, just know you will only ever at
| best be second chair.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Even Copper Canyon in Mexico?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Is it copper colored or have copper in it? If not, then
| it's not named as well ;P
|
| But no, I have not been to that canyon.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| I wouldn't want to miss either one, personally. Though I
| would think Copper Canyon would be a much more
| interesting multi-day hike. They are not substitutes for
| each other.
| alex_sf wrote:
| > And people expect more exciting and high quality things
| now, because they have seen a lot (comparably).
| neutronicus wrote:
| > The basic, economical attractions are still there if you
| look.
|
| Yeah, I live in Baltimore, and my wife and I go with our
| toddler to a beach at a state park. It's a 30 minute drive
| away, little patch of sand on the banks of the Back River, no
| waves, not more than 4 feet deep at the deepest part of the
| swimming area. Lots of shaded picnic tables and we bring food
| from home. More than one playground if the little guy wants a
| change of pace from the water. Honestly perfect for us, since
| shallow, placid river water is a lot more fun for a toddler
| than straight-up ocean breakers, and big shade trees within a
| hundred feet saves us schlepping a shade structure.
|
| It's 18 bucks plus gas for a full- to half-day outing.
|
| We bring friends and they're always amazed that it was right
| under their noses - people in Maryland are just stuck on
| sitting in traffic for hours and paying for lodging to go to
| one of the big ocean beach destinations (e.g. Ocean City).
| bombcar wrote:
| These things exist everywhere - the cheap/free options have
| no marketing budgets.
|
| I fondly remember something similar at Gasworks Park in
| Seattle.
| grumpitron wrote:
| Yes! Lots of good memories grabbing Paseo and then eating
| it on the Gasworks hill overlooking Lake Union. It gets
| pretty crowded on nice days, but so do most city parks.
| bombcar wrote:
| Our spot was the Northlake Tavern; grab a pizza to go and
| head over.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| I think the real problem is not that things are nicer, but
| that everyone demands "The Best". Disneyland is "The Best"
| attraction - In the world. When I was a kid, plenty of people
| were happy to go to local theme parks. Now, everyone has
| constant access to "Best of" lists. Being #2 is good enough,
| but being #10 probably only nets you a fraction of the
| mindshare it used to.
| neutronicus wrote:
| I've learned never to claim online that a restaurant here
| in Baltimore "is good."
|
| Has to be "we like [restaurant]" followed by disclaimers
| about having a toddler and not getting out much. Otherwise
| someone is guaranteed to scoff.
| thayne wrote:
| Most places don't have a "theme" park like Disneyland. And
| Amusement parks are often very expensive too. In some cases
| the park ticket and parking is almost as expensive as
| Disneyland (as is the case for me). Although, it is cheaper
| because of travel expenses (unless you live close to
| Disneyland).
| 1123581321 wrote:
| That's nice, and healthy. We do similar small trips. Many
| people who like big beaches are looking for different things.
| Big breakers, doing more with boards and watercraft, and of
| course the social element of seeing and being seen at the
| beach.
| bazzert wrote:
| I love this, with research and forward planning you can
| create magical experiences. One of my favorites when my son
| was very young is there is an island on cape cod we could
| paddle our canoe to and camp fronting a sandy beach under the
| shade of pine trees with warm protected waters for $8 a night
| (MA residents); the catch is that you had to book one of the
| dozen or so sites months ahead.
| avasylev wrote:
| That's sound awesome. What's the name of the island/camp?
|
| Writing from the Nickerson state park at Cape Cod which is
| also one of great parks with prestine lakes (and cheap for
| MA residents $20). Though cheapness makes it really hard to
| book, July-August you have to book at the opening date 6
| month in advance.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Unfortunately, in most cases, the reason you have to do
| this is because >50% of reservations no-show.
| bazzert wrote:
| right, for this particular place the cancellation fee is
| more than the night camping rate!
| FerociousTimes wrote:
| As they say, the best things in life are free.
| geoffeg wrote:
| Yea, but they've been getting more expensive with
| inflation.
| acchow wrote:
| Going to the beach is still free. Biking in the hills is
| still free.
| dkn775 wrote:
| You should be VERY careful about swimming in the back river.
| The wastewater treatment plant that discharges into it has
| basically been running at 20% capacity for past year or more.
|
| https://www.wbaltv.com/amp/article/back-river-public-
| health-...
| chasd00 wrote:
| During the worst of the pandemic i think my family hit 10-12
| different state parks here in Texas multiple times on weekend
| trips. We have an annual pass to all Texas state parks and
| with pay-at-the-pump the only human interaction we had was
| handing our pass to the gate attendant and getting it back.
| It kept us sane and we saw a lot of the state we had never
| seen before.
| RSHEPP wrote:
| I lived 15 min from Ocean City for 3 months last summer, that
| place was miserable. Assateague State Park was just south and
| much better, with wild horses too. But no lodging besides
| camping.
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| If you haven't yet, check out Ft. McHenry. It's beautiful!
| bsagdiyev wrote:
| I discovered something like this nearby to me recently. Not
| salt water since we're about two hours from the ocean, but a
| lake with playgrounds, beaches and forested walking areas.
| The lake is man made to cool the nearby nuclear plant and I
| suspect these were built as a concession to the state, but
| they're very well maintained and nice. I take my three year
| old fishing and to the playground and he loves it.
| yellowapple wrote:
| > Not salt water since we're about two hours from the ocean
| [...] The lake is man made to cool the nearby nuclear plant
|
| Rancho Seco? I grew up near there and have fond memories of
| it. The nuclear plant was shut down a couple years before I
| was born, but the structures are still standing; IIRC it's
| (slowly) being turned into a solar power station.
| [deleted]
| memcg wrote:
| Maryland\DC is great for kid-friendly activities. Annual
| passes to the aquarium and Baltimore zoo were reasonable 20
| years ago, not sure about now. Inner harbor was great too.
| neutronicus wrote:
| Ha, we have annual passes to both.
|
| I didn't want to bring them up because going for a day to
| the Aquarium is actually pretty expensive: 40 bucks per
| adult, 30 bucks for 3-11, and you're dropping another 15-25
| bucks on parking too, probably.
|
| But it works out great for us since we can get to either by
| bike or bus in 10 minutes, so we can go enough to make the
| memberships worth it (150-200 bucks if I recall correctly,
| it was my wife that made this purchase).
|
| Also if you live in the city there are a lot of ways to
| score free Aquarium tickets (main one I can think of is the
| public library).
| memcg wrote:
| My wife would use our passes to take our two kids plus a
| neighbor with kids on weekdays while I was at work.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| Inner Harbor is pretty dangerous nowadays. Do some research
| before heading there
| neutronicus wrote:
| Eh, I mean, not in any way that'll impact going to the
| Aquarium at 10 AM.
|
| I'm aware of the incidents that are (probably) making you
| say this, but during the day it's fine as long as you
| don't get out of your car and bum-rush groups of young
| men on the street with a baseball bat.
|
| It's just generally not the nicest place to be at night,
| though. Too big and empty and the night life is elsewhere
| in the city for the most part.
| jhbadger wrote:
| It's far safer "nowadays" than it used to be in the
| 1980s.
| throw8383833jj wrote:
| I suspect that some of what your paying for at disney is all
| that advertisement they do.
|
| >> I think everything is just generally "nicer". Stadium seats
| are cushier, parking lots are paved instead of gravel,
| sidewalks are a lot wider, more air-conditioned spaces, better
| food availability, etc.
|
| I never asked for any of that. I just want some cost effective
| free options for fun.
| bluedino wrote:
| >> Someone growing up in the 1930s wasn't able to hop on the
| interstate and go 300 miles away for the weekend. Those growing
| up in the 80s were more apt to do that sort of thing
|
| You mean 1950's, not 80's
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| I think there is a miscommunication or misunderstanding by
| some posts between the U.S. Highway System[0] and the
| Interstate Highway System[1]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Numbered_High
| way...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System
| LukeShu wrote:
| Construction started on Interstate system in 1956, and it'd
| be a while before it was complete enough to be usable.
| listenallyall wrote:
| In many cases, bridges were more influential in enabling
| road trips than interstates (or any highways) The Delaware
| Memorial Bridge allowed ferry-free driving from DC to New
| York in 1951. (And the NJ Turnpike, which opened the same
| year, is not a part of the federal Interstate system)
| LukeShu wrote:
| That's fair. I didn't address that because the GP post
| specifically said "interstate", and I didn't feel that
| the parent post was critiquing the broader point that
| lots of infrastructure projects between the 1930s and
| 1980s made travel more palatable, but specifically the
| association of the interstate system with the 1980s.
| aaronax wrote:
| I estimated based on my memory of reading about the
| construction process at rest areas here in ND. Via Wikipedia
| now, it looks like I was about right. Construction of the
| very first segments started in 1956. Various milestones were
| accomplished throughout the 70s and 80s, and not even
| official "completion" until the 1992, though I'm sure that
| was just a few segments here and there for the last 5-10
| years.
|
| In terms of having a substantial system of highways in place
| out that transformed traveling lifestyles for an age group of
| children, the general "growing up in the 80s" still seems
| about right.
| bluedino wrote:
| I wonder what 1946 song _(Get your kicks on) Route 66_ is
| about.
|
| Are you people not Americans? Do you have any idea how big
| car travel is here and how it's been happening way, way,
| before the 70's and 80's?
|
| My parents drove out to Yellowstone with my grandparents a
| very long time ago.
| mint2 wrote:
| I think people are just not very aware of the past
| including their grandfathers generation these days.
|
| My grandfather was a college lecturer and would plan
| massive road trips each summer in the 60s to all the
| national parks. These days I doubt a college lecturer
| could take summer off
| saghm wrote:
| >> Are you people not Americans?
|
| > I think people are just not very aware of the past
| including their grandfathers generation these days.
|
| It feels surreal to have to even state this, but "being
| American" does not require that one's grandparents grew
| up in America. Being a first or second generation
| immigrant does not make one less "American"
| newsclues wrote:
| Not American but I know that car reliability has improved
| to the point where motels and roadhouses have largely
| faded away from the highways as people are able to travel
| further more reliability.
| ac29 wrote:
| Route 66 wasnt even fully paved for the first decade of
| its existence, and was never an interstate. I dont think
| anyone here thinks travel by car was invented in the
| 1970s.
| tmaly wrote:
| US Highway system was not declared complete till 1992
| bigbillheck wrote:
| The difference between 'essentially complete' and 'declared
| complete' is stuff like 'bypass around small town in
| Idaho': https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2949
| vel0city wrote:
| US Interstates are different from US Highways.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Numbered_Highwa
| y...
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System
| orangepurple wrote:
| US 59 north out of Houston may be upgraded to an Interstate
| soon. The overall plan is called the NAFTA Superhighway
| because it would be a great connection between the
| populated parts Mexico and Canada.
| rascul wrote:
| I guess they'll have to get a new number if that happens.
| Interstate 59 already exists, running from Louisiana to
| Georgia. I'm kind of curious what that process looks
| like.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_59
| timerol wrote:
| Google maps already has it as Interstate 69 through
| Houston, and transitioning back to a state route north
| and south of the city. The actual numbering system is
| very simple, and explained at
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Fn_30AD7Pk
| jononomo wrote:
| Construction of the US Interstate Highway System did not
| begin until after passage of the Federal Aid Highway Act of
| 1956 and was not declared complete until 1992.
| rayiner wrote:
| The trouble with these comparisons is that they assume the
| world remains static while only prices change. But the
| positional status of the same kind of product or the same brand
| can also change in the market. For example, movie theaters used
| to be the only way to watch movies in 1960. Today, big screen
| LCDs and streaming are affordable to the median family. As a
| result, theaters have had to move upmarket to offer a
| compelling alternative to watching movies at home. It's not
| just that the theaters are way nicer, which they are, but that
| they necessarily occupy a higher end segment of the
| entertainment sector because other products have filled in some
| of the mass market segment.
|
| Cars are another good example of this. A 1985 Honda Accord is
| just not as nice of a car as a 2022 Honda Accord:
| https://www.netcarshow.com/honda/1985-accord_sedan. Not only in
| absolute terms, but in relative terms. The Accord occupies a
| premium segment of the market today compared to 1985.
|
| Disney, likewise, is much bigger and better today. The hotels
| are much nicer. Tech conditions people to expect better
| products for less money every year, but that doesn't translate
| into meat space. A bigger park with more attractions, nicer and
| cleaner hotel rooms, etc., all cost more to build and maintain
| even in inflation-adjusted terms.
| havblue wrote:
| I agree that cars are better, but are vacation destinations
| like Disney really better? If you see parade footage from
| magic kingdom in the nineties you'll see that the crowds are
| far less. Sure there's more variety, more thrill rides and
| more alcohol, but I'm not sure the crowds and increased
| expenses are worth it.
|
| Ditto on Las Vegas as far as prices are concerned.
| rayiner wrote:
| I mean "better" in material terms. Things were just more
| bare bones back then: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/the-
| old-disneyland-hotel-photo...
| thrashh wrote:
| There's definitely more quality to the park.
|
| There's also more people but I think that's an entirely
| separate issue. There are just more people on Earth than
| there was 10, 20 or 500 years ago.
|
| Maybe we aren't building enough new attractions. There is
| probably money in it.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| While Disney is amazing, the hotels (15 years age at least)
| were awful, yet totally worth it. The kids visiting with
| characters at breakfast and the characters remembering their
| names when they saw them in the park later you would not
| think that was worth the money but after seeing the joy on
| your kids face, holy moly, some of the best spent money in my
| life. Reliving those moments will sustain you as an old man.
| Make bad financial choices when it comes to your kids,
| because when you are older and it finally makes more sense
| financially, it's too late.
| bombcar wrote:
| And spend the money on experiences vs things - this is
| where the "adult preparation" can come into play, and
| deciding which things to aim money at.
|
| And also abuse every single possible thing you can,
| birthdays, etc, and don't be afraid to ask.
| mbfg wrote:
| you make rational arguments here, and i don't disagree. The
| issue is, there are no "cheap new cars", for any rational
| definition of cheap, as could be compared to cars in the 80s.
| and while you don't need a movie theater experience, a car is
| much more a requirement for large segments of people. Sure
| you can get a used car, but the point of the article is a
| comparison to what you used to be able to have. i'd love to
| get a $12K 1985 "New Civic" now.
| Aeolun wrote:
| > I think everything is just generally "nicer". Stadium seats
| are cushier, parking lots are paved instead of gravel,
| sidewalks are a lot wider, more air-conditioned spaces, better
| food availability, etc.
|
| You'd think that the profits over the past 60 gears would have
| been able to pay for a lot of that.
|
| But of course these things are owned by shareholders that
| demand returns, and if you just get a new loan/grant/subsidy to
| pay for your $108M parking lot (seriously wtf?), there's that
| much more to pay out to the most important people of all.
| djbebs wrote:
| You're welcome to buy Disney shares and subsidize disneyland-
| gooers at your own expense.
| jcpst wrote:
| Growing up, my parents were very anti Disney[land|world]. We
| always knew it would never be something we were going to. They
| were offended by the cost and the crowds.
|
| Now having a family of my own, we keep the tradition alive. Our
| kids know Disney(place) as a thing that is overpriced and
| overcrowded.
|
| But, It's all in what kind of recreation you seek. I'm sure
| there plenty of people who would be put off by all the camping
| and canoeing trips we do.
| neutronicus wrote:
| My parents were the same, and at the time I felt deprived (my
| friends spoke glowingly of their Disneyworld trips).
|
| But I nevertheless grew into a Disney grinch. (We have roller
| coasters in Maryland!)
| bombcar wrote:
| In SoCal Disneyland was widely considered as being "for the
| babies" amongst my crowd - the _real deal_ was to go to
| Magic Mountain where they had a ride that _went upside
| down_.
| deebosong wrote:
| I like that this is a tradition, and I would like to become a
| member of this party. Anti-Disney, but many, many, maaaaaaany
| other options for things way more interactive, engaging,
| interesting, etc.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Wow, what a sad story.
| jcpst wrote:
| A tear rolled down my face as I resurfaced the trauma of my
| childhood, knowing that I'll never know the wonder and awe
| of the land of Disney.
|
| Hopefully I can get my driver's license renewed soon, so I
| can pretend the line is for a ride at the land of magic.
| driverdan wrote:
| You're right, Disney is sad. Everything they said was true.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| These days you get more than you bargained for, like you will
| die in a mass shooting because late stage capitalism turns
| another against humanity.
| arrrg wrote:
| Just one thing: National parks aren't exactly expensive, right?
|
| During our travels through the US they definitely provided the
| most bang for the buck, especially given that we had the $80
| annual pass. In that context it was actually state parks that
| were an additional cost for us, though certainly never any kind
| of substantial cost. The tiniest fraction of our budget. Doing
| stuff in cities was much more expensive and we didn't even
| consider visiting Disneyland, even though we actually stayed a
| couple of nights in Orlando (to visit the Kennedy Space Center
| - one of the most expensive things we did - followed by a visit
| to the neighboring state park, which was very cheap).
|
| We never stayed inside or even just near the parks, so that
| certainly helped. Our budget of spending between $100 and $150
| per night for three people always felt very manageable (mostly
| AirBnB and so we nearly always had a kitchen to cook food) but
| I can see how that might be too much for some people.
|
| I think had we wanted to stay closer to the national parks (to
| explore them more thoroughly instead of basically doing day
| trips to like twenty of them) we would have spent a bit more on
| places to sleep (more like $200).
|
| The fun things to do in national parks don't cost any
| additional money, at least usually. I guess if you want to ride
| a mule down to the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon? But even
| that's more limited by scarcity than price. Maybe there are
| little costs here and there (like renting bikes in the
| Everglades) but we definitely spent more on t-shirts about
| national parks than we did on things to do in national parks.
| They felt like a real benevolent gift most of the time, expect
| when there were too many other people, I guess (though since we
| were one of those too many people we could hardly complain).
| xahrepap wrote:
| I've done a handful of National Park trips in the last year
| and a half (Yellow Stone, a few in southern Utah).
|
| I would say National Park trips are "expensive" in ways other
| than the cash it takes to get in. We tried to plan our trips
| avoiding the major holidays and spring/fall breaks of the
| local school districts, etc.
|
| - They're overly crowded. It feels like a theme park. Looking
| at a waterfall and you're standing shoulder to shoulder with
| strangers. It's crazy.
|
| - Parking is nearly impossible to find. Some days you have to
| pay for parking and bus into the park.
|
| - Every campground was full. Hotels and BNBs are not exactly
| cheap in those areas.
|
| We'd ask workers/etc about the traffic and they'd always say
| stuff like, "oh yeah, this is nothing. You should've seen it
| X weeks ago!"
|
| So, sure the National Park itself is peanuts to get
| admission. But it was disappointing in a lot of ways. For
| those reasons, I would be more interested in paying more
| dollars to see State parks, if all the other "costs" were
| "cheaper" :)
| ROTMetro wrote:
| If you are going 'second tier' with State parks, just go to
| National Forests. Where I am you can see amazing
| waterfalls, ride down nature made water slides, gathers
| crystals, gather sharks teeth, see breathtaking ancient
| cedar groves, breathtaking lake views, breathtaking alpine
| lake views, breathtaking mountain views, see wildlife from
| mountain sheep to moose to if you aren't careful grizzlies
| (be smart, National Forests has way less safeguards than
| National Parks)(the only animal my son never saw on his
| wishlist was a porcupine, the scariest ever seen according
| to the kids, not a grizzlie or wolf, no, a beaver in the
| water while they were swimming), mountainbike/hike. All
| free.
| ghaff wrote:
| Most of the National Parks (and National Monuments) are
| such for good reason but there are definitely
| alternatives and the most popular parks may have crowds
| (and restrictions) that make them not worth it at peak
| times. There are some parks I'd never visit during the
| summer. Not that all the alternatives are uncrowded. Some
| Wilderness Areas in particular have almost impossible to
| come by permits.
| bmitc wrote:
| I am actually of the opinion that national parks should be
| more protected or have significant increases in price and/or
| limited visitors. We went to Rocky Mountain National Park on
| what happened to be a major holiday weekend. We actually
| didn't plan on doing so, but we were looking for something to
| do while already on vacation there and decided to hit up some
| of the trails on a day we hadn't planned anything. The park
| was so unbelievably packed it was miserable at some of the
| popular trails. Hour long bus rides to get to the trail, tons
| of cars, and tons of hikers. I spoke candidly with some of
| the volunteers and park rangers there, and they agreed that
| something needed to be done to limit visitors and were
| certain it would be coming sooner than later.
|
| Everywhere you could look you could see damage to the park.
| From people swimming in the mountain lakes, going off trail,
| cars providing pollution and noise and killing animals, etc.
| The volunteers at the park were exhausted. And I'm pretty
| sure someone hit and killed a black bear with a car on the
| weekend we were there. People were just moving through the
| park like cattle at the mall.
| biftek wrote:
| RMNP has had a reservation system since the pandemic, which
| I hope they keep for this reason. Aside from Bear Lake the
| park hasn't been noticeably busier than others the handful
| of times I've gone since they started it
| JoeNr76 wrote:
| translated: Never complain, proles, just be glad you get some
| scraps from that ever-growing economy. Even if it's less than
| your parents.
| switch007 wrote:
| Yup. Billionaires and capitalists don't need to downgrade
| their expectations, of course.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| zaptrem wrote:
| I think his point is the names have changed but the quality
| is still there. 1960s Disneyland is more similar to a modern
| Six Flags, while modern Disneyland has no equivalent in the
| 60s.
| rayiner wrote:
| This is also true of places! I was shocked to learn that
| the 1,100 square foot 1950s house I grew up in is at
| $850,000 on Redfin. But in the 1990s, my town was a boring
| faceless suburb near a dangerous city (DC). It didn't have
| a Whole Foods, nor did it have whatever the the equivalent
| of Whole Foods was in the 1990s. The town itself moved
| dramatically upmarket in the last 30 years.
|
| Much of Silicon Valley also fits the bill of places that
| were drab faceless suburbs in the 1980s when people's
| parents bought houses there. But it's not like there wasn't
| expensive suburbs in the 1980s. It's just that Mountain
| View today occupies the same market position Scarsdale NY
| or Greenwich CY occupied in the 1980s.
| psi75 wrote:
| How the quality of Disneyland has evolved is... tricky to
| evaluate. The rides are almost certainly safer and probably
| a bit more impressive on a technical front, but the
| experience itself? I'm not sure and, given that I'm a
| middle-aged man, I have no desire to go to Disneyland ever.
| Still, I imagine it was a better experience in the 1960s
| because it was less crowded. That's not Disneyland's fault,
| of course. It has gone from a place where a few devoted
| fans went a few times in their lives to a place where a
| much larger number of people go only once in their life
| (because it's just not worth it, in terms of headache, to
| go more than once, especially if you don't have kids under
| 12).
|
| The general problem is overpopulation--but the good news is
| that there's a countervailing force built in: the more
| people there are, the more stuff of value there can be. New
| York's too congested to live in? Go to Chicago. Chicago
| becomes full? Live in Minneapolis, or Madison, or some up-
| and-coming artsy small town most of us have never heard of.
| So, the problem we actually experience is not
| overpopulation itself but, rather, the weighted
| overpopulation that is created by extreme inequality (i.e.,
| by some people having 1,000,000 times more votes and more
| choices than the rest of us). When some rich douchebag can
| play the high school bully and buy hotel rooms for $1000
| per night (or even buy out the whole hotel) it means
| everyone who can't pay $1000 per night for lodging suffers.
| We don't actually need to depopulate the world (although,
| and I hate to say this, I think traumatic and unplanned
| depopulation is a high likelihood in the next 50 years) so
| much as we need to do something about the astronomical
| footprint of the rich; we could support the global
| population that exists now if only the world were run by
| better people and the resources better organized.
| bombcar wrote:
| Significant percentage of Disney rides are ...
| _identical_ to when they opened. They 've added some new
| ones, and removed some, but many things remain (and are
| probably "stuck" now - I see no way they could remove
| "It's a small world" even though they keep redoing the
| art.
| detaro wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if the number of devoted fans
| going repeatedly is higher now than it was back then.
| psi75 wrote:
| 627467 wrote:
| > Now that person who traveled to all sorts of attractions
| continues to seek out new things -> bigger and better of
| course. More $$$.
|
| I wonder if this the only trend pressuring prices up. Another
| effect of "bigger and better" is that it reduces the likelyhood
| of competition. And with less competition, there's less
| downward price pressure.
|
| Another possible pressure is on why it has to be better. I
| don't think it's only consumer pressure. (Surely those who
| can't pay for "better" would rather stay at "good enough"). The
| problem is, what regulators consider "good enough" back then is
| not good enough today.
|
| Some call this "progress". But some of these standards could be
| construed as protectionist barriers of entry
| onion2k wrote:
| This comes over as a very "Let them eat cake." response.
| [deleted]
| xg15 wrote:
| > _Instead of Disney, go to the state fair._
|
| That's essentially the "skip the avocado toast" type of logic.
|
| Except there were already state fairs in the 60s and Disney in
| the 60s and the latter was already a whole different level back
| then. So there has been real change if back then you could
| afford to take your kids to Disney and today the budget is only
| enough for the state fair anymore.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I'm just still sad they killed DisneyQuest.
| runako wrote:
| "Instead of MLB/NFL, check out summer or arena leagues"
|
| This is a great option. I would add to this (smaller) college
| events. We take family outings to see collegiate volleyball,
| which is free (even parking!) and food is priced like the
| 1980s. It is possible to watch Olympians compete for less than
| the price of a movie ticket.
|
| Similarly, the colleges near us have good (although small)
| museums. And student-run theaters often have public events that
| do not cost a lot of money.
| bombcar wrote:
| In parts of the country _high school_ sports are a big deal,
| and often cheap or free. And almost by definition local.
|
| https://kixs.com/most-expensive-and-biggest-texas-high-
| schoo...
| lordnacho wrote:
| I doubt it's that much better.
|
| My guess is it's MBAs. They figured out that you can squeeze
| people more and so they're doing it.
|
| Before everything was optimized by a business person with as
| spreadsheet, people would set prices by reasonable guess, and
| that guess would simply be lower than optimal.
|
| For instance there's a village shop where I live. You can get a
| hand made sandwich for two pounds. Similar factory made
| sandwiches at Marks would easily be closer to double.
| listenallyall wrote:
| Why would you guess MBAs, and not the thousands of
| technologists devoting their career to adtech, pricing
| optimization, A/B testing, data science, etc?
|
| "Those damn MBAs" is a lazy scapegoat.
| greedo wrote:
| Yes, because programmers etc just love to build tools that
| squeeze every last nickel out of people by using dark
| patterns etc. It's the suits that are always pushing
| pricing efficiency in my experience, not the nerds.
| listenallyall wrote:
| I would disagree. A business-oriented exec may have a
| general idea such as "optimize pricing" but the "nerds"
| (your term) will chime in with "let's employ a neural
| network-based ML training loop" that they clearly have
| been eagerly hoping to try out.
|
| Doesn't matter anyway. If you've chosen big-corp adtech,
| datasci, analytics, optimization, etc for a career, not
| "loving" it is not an excuse.
| lordnacho wrote:
| It's a shorthand for the type of business idea that has no
| goal other than short-term optimization. Certainly people
| without an MBA can do this as well, but the MBA is the
| archetype of "if it makes money soon, we should do it".
| listenallyall wrote:
| > no goal other than short-term optimization.
|
| Tickets to sports, concerts, Disney and other big-name
| attractions have been increasingly steadily, outpacing
| inflation, for at least the past 25 years. You've really
| missed the boat if you think this is in any way, "short-
| term".
| namelessoracle wrote:
| I went to Disney World this year and Disney World in the 90s.
| Disney World now was not "nicer" than it was then, about the
| same, all the "enhancements" benefit Disney more than me the
| customer in my opinion, and in fact many of the attractions
| looked like they were barely hanging on. But Im more impressed
| by well made animatronics than video screens (which i can do at
| home) so maybe Im the wrong person to ask. I do remember the
| food tasting better and being more affordable in the 90s too.
| But we can chalk that up to the time difference.
|
| Disney seems to be going after DINC people now instead of
| families with their pricing and overall strategy. Good luck
| with that.
| bmitc wrote:
| > I think everything is just generally "nicer".
|
| That's an interesting perspective that I wouldn't have
| expected. I didn't grow up anywhere near the 50s, but I feel
| like everything is worse from even my childhood in the 90s and
| 2000s. Malls are decrepit, national and state parks are under
| maintained but overrun with visitors, stadium seats could not
| be smaller (and are often so vertical in the "affordable" seats
| it creates vertigo sensations), parking lots are full of
| gigantic cracks and poorly marked areas and holes, theme parks
| are under maintained and expensive with huge lines and many
| from my childhood closed down, and it goes on and on. I went to
| an NFL game (only because I got free tickets). It took around
| 45 minutes from our car in the parking lot (not including the
| time to be directed to park), in a lot that I'm pretty sure was
| not paved at all, to get to our seats. The seats were so high
| up, we could barely see anything. We might as well have been
| watching from a nearby skyscraper. And the seats were sardine
| seats, as in sitting sideways so as to not hit the people in
| front of you with your knees. Those seats probably cost those
| around me hundreds of dollars.
|
| It's also well known that many people from those older times
| had rents and mortgages at _much_ smaller percentages of their
| monthly income than those today, whereas today they can exceed
| 50% easily.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Some things are definitely nicer and some are not. Malls are
| worse maybe overall but there are some that are also
| extremely nice now. And is it not also a huge improvement
| that you can just easily order something from ease at home
| without having to go to a crowded mall in the first place?
|
| The housing thing though for sure is a problem. Then again we
| are now concentrating more and more in big cities.
|
| The one thing people always miss with these calculations is
| food. We think food is expensive now but the cost of chicken
| or beef is insanely cheap relative to really what it should
| be (or what it once was). A steak in the 1920s was probably a
| real treat.
| bombcar wrote:
| Malls are just ... _dead_ - there are a few that are kept
| up and maintained but very, very few new ones being built.
| locust101 wrote:
| https://www.in2013dollars.com/Beef-and-veal/price-inflation
|
| It has gone up 4.12% per year compared to regular food
| inflation rate of 3.56%. So no it is not cheaper.
| mbfg wrote:
| for interest, looked it up.
|
| In 1950, porterhouse steak was $0.95 per pound.
| golemiprague wrote:
| Terr_ wrote:
| Specifically thinking about nostalgic air-travel, perhaps
| some things seem lower-quality because they simply cost less
| (after inflation adjustments) than before.
|
| That said I still wouldn't dare suggest a 1:1 relationship
| between the trends.
| robg wrote:
| Whereas movie theaters seem to be a dying industry, and doing
| what they can to survive, Disney and baseball could afford to
| charge less. But why would they when demand <> supply can be
| tightly controlled by increasingly higher prices?
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _In the 1950s and '60s -- the so-called Golden Age of American
| capitalism -- family outings were within the realm of
| affordability for most median income earners. Many blue-collar
| workers could afford new homes and cars and still take their kids
| to Disneyland._
|
| WW2 marks the end of The Great Depression. Due to high
| unemployment during The Great Depression, America was able to
| increase supply of both "guns and butter" -- the shorthand they
| used for military production and consumer products.
|
| During the war, there was rationing, there were Victory Gardens
| where people grew their own food so farm production could feed
| the soldiers overseas, women went to work at very high rates to
| fill essential jobs left vacant by so many men shipping out as
| soldiers.
|
| They stopped production of cars and converted car factories to
| jeep factories. You couldn't buy silk stockings, so women bought
| makeup and drew a seam down the back of their leg to look like
| thry were in silk stockings. You couldn't buy sugar, so birthday
| cakes were sometimes a sawdust mockup for show, just to blow out
| the candles. Cigarettes were rationed.
|
| You had low birth rates because as Lucille Ball once said, you
| can't phone that in and the men were mostly overseas. You had
| many two income couples with no kids being born and nothing to
| spend the money on due to wartime rationing and restrictions.
|
| The result: Savings rates exceeded 50 percent during parts of the
| war.
|
| "The Boys" came home and as veterans were entitled to both help
| going to college and help buying a house. Prior to that time,
| both homeownership and college were generally viewed as more
| upperclass trappings.
|
| The so-called _middle class_ of the 1950s and 60s had upperclass
| assets, working class sensibilities and a substantial nest egg to
| start their family with.
|
| If we made the entire US buckle down, work, stop having kids,
| denied them spending opportunities and forced them to save half
| their income etc for the next five years, then issued them help
| with mortgage payments and free college tuition, the 2030s might
| look a lot like the 1950s.
|
| But we can't, so we won't. Yet that's the invisible elephant in
| the room behind what created the wealth of the 1950s and how that
| legacy still haunts us in myriad ways.
| treis wrote:
| This isn't really a good comparison. We have the same number of
| Disneylands and MLB teams that we did in 1960 with double the
| population. Not to mention increased international tourism to a
| place like Disneyland. And a box of candy, tub of popcorn, and
| sodas have gotten significantly bigger than 1960.
|
| A lot of places like LA are significantly worse than they used to
| be. But flyover country still has pretty cheap living. My local
| Six Flags + Water Park season pass including parking was $80 per
| head this year as an example. That's a lot cheaper than $1k for a
| single visit to Disneyland.
| mgas wrote:
| Also, there is Disney World, and EuroDisney, and hundreds of
| other non-Disney theme parks throughout the US and worldwide.
| Disney is setting a price that keeps them at the upper echelon
| of theme parks, whether the experience itself is deserving or
| not.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| That feels like you're identifying a cause, not invalidating
| the comparison?
| bombcar wrote:
| Even Disneyland isn't insanely expensive for those who live
| locally - they have a "California Resident" pass to encourage
| locals to go during down times.
|
| What makes it expensive is airfare and hotel added on top of
| the tickets.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| If you want a subscription that you pay monthly, and you can
| go during the week, and forget about going at popular/busy
| times or to seasonal attractions.
| StrictDabbler wrote:
| Disney cancelled the old California resident program during
| the Covid shakeup.
|
| The California-specific Magic Key was much more restricted
| than the old locals pass, clogged with blackout days.
|
| It was $399/person. It's long been sold out and nobody knows
| when they'll sell more.
|
| They now offer these tickets to California residents:
|
| * 3-Day (Monday-Thursday), 1-Park Per Day Ticket - $249
| ($83/Day) Not Valid for Admission on Fridays to Sundays *
| 3-Day (Monday-Sunday), 1-Park Per Day Ticket - $299
| ($100/Day) No Blockout Dates Apply
|
| A standard non-california 3-day single-park ticket is $330,
| so you're only saving $10 a day being a local.
|
| The whole California local thing is basically gone except for
| the hotel/flight advantage.
| mlyle wrote:
| As a sibling comment posts out, this is gone.
|
| Disney has no reason to price discriminate in favor of
| locals-- indeed, locals don't buy as many souvenirs, etc.
| syspec wrote:
| What makes it expensive is the price, as outlined in the
| article.
| hourago wrote:
| This is the real inflation problem. Money does not go anymore
| to build entertainment or products for the middle class, money
| go to fund crypto-bullshit or Uber or the next "big thing".
| Money runs away from everyday products that citizens need.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I don't know about the Anaheim location but Disney has
| dramatically expanded their Florida park since it opened in
| 1971 and a large number of competing theme parks have been
| built in the area.
| bombcar wrote:
| Anaheim added a whole second park (California Adventure) and
| Magic Mountain added a water park.
|
| This allows them to sell "single park" and "park hopper"
| tickets to further price segment. For a single day, I'd do a
| single ticket, one park is hard to "complete" in a day.
| vel0city wrote:
| Disney World didn't open until 1971, 11 years after your 1960.
| So just with that, we actually have 2x more Disney's than we
| did in 1960. But in reality there's actually a lot more.
|
| Epcot opened in 1982. Hollywood Studios and Typhoon Lagoon
| opened in 1989. Blizzard Beach opened in 1995. Animal Kingdom
| opened in 1998. California Adventure opened in 2001. These are
| only the parks in the US, not including the parks overseas. On
| top of that a few of these parks have had a good bit of
| expansion since their original opening, there has been more
| engineering to increase effective capacity of the rides, etc.
| Disney alone can move a lot more people through a Disney park
| every day than they could in 1960.
|
| And then this ignores all the other theme parks which opened
| since Disney. Universal Orlando Resort opened in 1990.
| Universal's Islands of Adventure opened in 1999. Kings Island
| opened in '71. Carowinds opened in '73. Six Flags alone has 11
| theme parks they still operate which opened after 1960, and all
| water parks they operate opened after 1960. Our stock of
| amusement parks has increased a ton since 1960.
| treis wrote:
| That's my point. They're comparing Disney to Disney prices
| but neglecting the other options. Tickets for my local six
| flags are less than the inflation Disney prices and you can
| get annual passes with parking for the equivalent of two
| tickets.
| loldk wrote:
| dfmooreqqq wrote:
| In 1960, we had 16 MLB teams [1]. We currently have 30 [2].
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_in_baseball
|
| 2. https://www.espn.com/mlb/standings
| treis wrote:
| Wow I didn't realize so many teams were that new.
| olivermarks wrote:
| Health and safety bureaucrats arguably prevent affordable leisure
| activities - in most western countries it is very hard to provide
| unique small business run experiential places and activities due
| to endless expense meeting ever more legal requirements. The
| result is identical generic theme parks, stadiums etc all over
| the world run by large global companies.
|
| The theme park companies will milk a family for everything they
| have once they're in the park with kids wanting to wait for
| evening fireworks aligned with slightly less expensive pizza and
| sugary drink offers.
| DoneWithAllThat wrote:
| Both health and safety and accessibility/ADA requirements. I
| was playing mini golf the other day and realized you couldn't
| even build that course anymore, it's not wheelchair friendly.
| The cost of starting or running any business open to the public
| has gone up astronomically with the growth of overwhelming
| bureaucracy at all levels of government.
| stomczyk09 wrote:
| I mainly want to address the baseball portion, as I do agree with
| the theme park prices getting to crazy high levels, and big
| expenses:
|
| -While it is frustrating that the prices are rising, there are
| ways around this. The type of game is an important factor to
| include. Obviously rivalries are going to be expensive, but if
| you go to maybe a Wednesday night when your team plays someone
| out of market, you can grab same day tickets for a deal on broker
| sites(although fees are annoying). I believe there are ways to be
| creative about this, and doesn't necessarily have to break the
| bank(I paid 6 dollars to see the yankees play the marlins like 3
| years ago as an example).
|
| -The food portion I do agree with, as that is getting out of
| control. I tend to eat before I go and stick to waters(maybe a
| beer or 2) to not spend too much while there.
|
| -Given the subway system in New York, I've never had to park a
| car to get to a game and pay round trip 5 bucks to get to the
| game, so I'm uneducated on this one. I am sure this is probably
| the hardest cost to avoid in most cities.
|
| Last thing I will say, as I know my prior thoughts don't
| necessarily address the obvious problem of major league games
| becoming out of reach for groups/families.
|
| When I was a kid, one of my favorite games I've ever been to was
| a Minor League game in Newark, NJ. For a low price, you can get
| GREAT seats and the same environment of a baseball game. From
| what I remember, it was a fantastic family environment, that
| tends to offer cheaper amenities(i.e food, drinks, etc.) that
| still provides a great ballgame environment. Know this is not the
| same as seeing your favorite big league team play, but still a
| great option!
|
| Would love to hear what people think
| asdff wrote:
| Baseball stadiums are great experience for small market teams.
| You can see Cleveland play for like $15 because they never sell
| out. Meanwhile good luck finding a dodger game for $15. It's
| priced as high as the market can bear. If they can sell dodger
| tickets for as much as they do and still sell out every single
| home game they will continue pricing them even higher next
| season until some limit has been reached like it has for
| cleveland with those $15 bleacher seats you can score. Right
| now it looks like the limit does not exist for large market
| teams like the dodgers at least.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| I still think that it's madness that entertainment companies
| priced out the general public like that. I understand that they
| are not charities and that's some people are still paying these
| extortionate prices but still.
|
| Part of me thinks it's crazy how we all seem fine about
| building a two-tiered world where the rich get richer and can
| enjoy luxurious things while the poor scrap by.
|
| I believe it's clearly a consequence of the policies enacted in
| the 80s. These policies were pushed out with a total disregard
| for social cohesion. It's all about making target numbers grow
| bigger without looking at the big picture. My belief is we have
| reached a point where inequality needs to be tamed if we don't
| want our states to be torn apart but the idea has apparently
| never been as unpopular with half of the population.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Stadiums remain pretty full in my anecdotal experience, so
| while they may have priced out the general public, they don't
| fit anyway.
| bombcar wrote:
| This is the main thing - if there was a large demand for
| "cheap Disneylands" for the general public, someone would
| build them and snap up that group.
|
| And they have, SoCal and Florida have lots more amusement
| parks than they used to, and they're not all priced the
| same.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > if there was a large demand for "cheap Disneylands"
|
| There is a large demand for cheap family entertainment,
| and a lot of supply.
|
| It doesn't look a lot like "city sized theme park with
| exclusively licensed characters from major popular media"
| because...that's inherently not cheap to operate, so
| people trying to do it either end up being expensive, or
| go out of business (and the universe of defunct theme
| parks is a testament to the latter outcome.)
| quxbar wrote:
| It is very difficult to recognize the dysfunction of a system
| that works to one's own benefit. Enough people are
| comfortable under the current system that any coherent policy
| change seems unlikely.
| bombcar wrote:
| Minor league games are an amazing steal; especially if you have
| a local team you can follow - you get up close and personal,
| and often the players stick around for autographs and fun.
|
| I have quite fond memories of the Everett Aquasox; I wish we
| had a minor league team closer to where I am now. And sometimes
| you even get to see the stars when they're on injury rehab!
| stomczyk09 wrote:
| Huge call out on the stars in Rehab Assignment. AAA teams
| you'll see some players like that or draft picks that are
| going to be in the starting lineup soon!
| neutronicus wrote:
| The Orioles are for sure dirt-cheap. They run promotions where
| you can get in for four bucks. When I was in Pittsburgh for a
| minute the Pirates were a crazy bargain too.
|
| If the MTA ever gets its shit together I'll be able to get
| there and back on the Light Rail, too.
| stomczyk09 wrote:
| Good insight! That being said, the only baseball stadiums
| I've been to are the 2 in NY, Philly, and San Diego so don't
| have the national insight.
|
| The Yankees do Pinstripe passes where you get a beer and a
| seat for X dollars which tends to be a good deal
| bombcar wrote:
| The Petco Park-in-the-Park is now $20 wow, used to be $5.
| cableshaft wrote:
| As someone who doesn't really follow sports much anymore, and
| doesn't really care much about specific teams, I much prefer
| going to Minor League games.
|
| Much cheaper, parking is easy, nowhere near as crowded, much
| more relaxed, and the baseball is practically indistinguishable
| to me from Major League.
| alexpotato wrote:
| Interesting intersection of two points in this article and
| the comments:
|
| Friend of mine and I were talking about how minor league
| baseball is in decline vs college baseball due to colleges
| offering:
|
| - better housing (nice dorms vs motels)
|
| - better food (cafeteria vs chain restaurant/fast food)
|
| - better lifestyle (top college baseball players at baseball
| focused schools are treated like gods)
| mmmpop wrote:
| Cons: at least the pretense of learning things and passing
| courses
|
| I've met and drank with some minor league baseball guys
| before and obviously I won't speak for all of them, but
| they often aren't really uh... college material.
| bombcar wrote:
| College baseball also hasn't been forced to be the minor
| leagues like college football has; some say that many of
| the college students playing foot ball aren't really
| uh... college material either.
| mbg721 wrote:
| College baseball is very granularly regional in a way that
| football and basketball aren't; if you're near a good
| college team, you know it for sure.
| stomczyk09 wrote:
| I would agree with this. The environment of a baseball game
| at a minor league is comparable to a major league team as far
| as setting and atmosphere.
| mbg721 wrote:
| I wouldn't agree...minor league teams appeal to gimmicks at
| all costs and have distorted stats because the balance of
| the game is meant for big-leaguers.
| mbg721 wrote:
| I guess I should amend that to mention that market size
| matters...the Reds, Mets, and Tigers are kind of AAA-ish.
| stomczyk09 wrote:
| I guess how I should have phrased this was for a family
| that wants to bring their kids to a ball game to
| experience the atmosphere it could be a good, more
| affordable way.
|
| You make a valid point, but if I lived near, for example,
| Somerset. I would make it a point to watch one of the
| Yankees' promising prospects.
| mbg721 wrote:
| If you want to watch the Yankees' prospects, watch the
| Reds or Twins.
| mmmpop wrote:
| I agree. I remember going to a AA game as a kid and it
| stuck with me a long time as a great experience.
| brewdad wrote:
| The quality of minor league baseball, at least the level
| available to me (Single A), is way below that of the major
| leagues but the entire experience is 2x-5x cheaper before
| adding in the cost of transportation and a hotel. The nearest
| MLB team is almost 4 hours away from me. Our minor league
| team is about 10 minutes away.
|
| So, since I can get a ticket, parking, food, and a couple of
| local microbrews for less than $50, I'll attend the minor
| league games and watch the MLB team in 4K from my living
| room. The games tend to be faster too, so often I can go the
| the minor league game and then catch the last inning or two
| of the MLB game at home.
| noelsusman wrote:
| I go see my local AAA team a few times a month during the
| season. I sit right behind home plate for $15. Parking is $7
| or free if you're willing to walk 10 minutes. They brew their
| own beer and sell tall boys for $5 each.
|
| The skill gap between MLB and AAA has probably never been
| bigger, but at the same time the gap between AAA and the
| lower levels has probably never been smaller. And of course
| to the untrained eye (99% of fans) it all looks basically
| identical.
| bombcar wrote:
| I wonder where AAA is on "skill inflation" against the
| historical MLB of 20-50 years ago. It's possible that AAA
| players today are better than the average major leaguer of
| the past.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| Highest MLB salary in 1960: $80,000 ($800,000 in 2022 dollars)
|
| Highest MLB salary in 2022: $43,000,000
| kasey_junk wrote:
| Anecdotal but right now you can buy s "family four pack" at the
| Chicago White Sox for $75 inclusive of fees. That's tickets, hot
| dog, soda & chips for four people.
|
| That's nearly half the price of the articles cheapest listed
| ballgame.
| neilknowsbest wrote:
| Regarding the relevance of the example expenses for Disney:
|
| Disney's 2019 Annual Report [0] shows total revenues of $26B for
| their Parks, Experiences and Products segment. Within that,
| revenues for admissions are $7.5B, merchandise/food/beverage $6B,
| resorts/vacations $6B, and some miscellaneous licensing $6.5B.
|
| An industry or market research company reports [1] visitation in
| 2019 of 155MM. I'm assuming this is somewhat accurate.
|
| Admissions revenues per visitor are around $50, compared to a
| cost of $150 or so quoted in the article; TFA might be overpaying
| for tickets. The resorts/vacations (I assume this means hotels)
| revenue is $40 per visitor or $160 for a family of 4 for 1 night.
| This, combined with the prevalence of <$200/night hotels near
| Disneyland [2] suggests to me that not all visitors are staying
| in the Disney hotels, and the ones who aren't may be paying less
| than the $450 from TFA.
|
| All this to say that the current costs for Disney are likely
| lower than what TFA suggests, unclear by how much.
|
| [0] -
| https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/app/uploads/2020/01/2019-An...
|
| [1] -
| https://www.teaconnect.org/images/files/TEA_369_258927_20071...
|
| [2] -
| https://www.google.com/maps/search/Hotels/@33.8029354,-117.9...
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Even camping is getting expensive too.
| roflyear wrote:
| I live in one of the most expensive places in the US and camp
| sites are almost free. Tents are not super expensive?
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| I live in Southern Ontario, and there are no free campsites
| anywhere near here. So If I was going to go camping for a
| weekend, this would be my minimum costs.
|
| Ontario Park Campsite $59/night x 2 = $120
|
| Firewood 2 x $15 = $30
|
| Food $30+
|
| Beer $20.
|
| Tank of Gas $100+
|
| _________
|
| Total $300+
| dahart wrote:
| Why did you use the most expensive AA level? Aren't the
| "minimum" costs available at C level spots? Looks like
| there are sites where you can pay $35 instead of $60.
| Certainly you could also do a minimum 1 night stay, rather
| than 2 nights?
|
| https://www.ontarioparks.com/fees/camping/2022
|
| Your consumption of gas, beer, firewood and food don't
| really support the idea of increased camping costs either,
| right? You'd likely have beer & food & heating, and drive
| somewhere anyway, no? Nothing here except the park fee is
| specific to camping, and aside from gas this year they
| haven't increased by much either.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| The cheapest campsite I found near by is $42 for non
| electric. Provincial parks tend to sell out.
|
| 1 x $42.00 CampFee-A-NE
|
| $42.00
|
| 1 x $9.73 ReservationFee-web
|
| $9.73
|
| Subtotal
|
| $51.73
|
| Not that far off. This is a non electric campsite. I
| would like an electric campsite for various reasons.
| floren wrote:
| Your camping trips are getting cheaper, at least. Last time
| it was $50 worth of beer, plus $15 worth of cigarettes.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31658919
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Last time people were nickel and dimming how many beers a
| minimum wage worker would get to bring on their camping
| trip, to prove that it was still affordable I guess, and
| not that they would need to save up for a month to go on
| it, and you know ignoring that maybe he might want to
| take a friend.
| edmcnulty101 wrote:
| The campground reservation system has caused me more issues
| than the price. I drove through a "full" campground a few
| weekends ago and half the spots were empty.
|
| People are making reservations and not showing up.
| bombcar wrote:
| This is something you get whenever there's a reservation
| system, even with a cost, if the cost is "minor" enough.
|
| And the problem with campsites is they're often far enough
| from the inhabited areas that you can't just "waitlist"
| people at the last minute like restaurants do.
| edmcnulty101 wrote:
| Reservations at campground didn't exist until relatively
| recently also and that maximized the space better than the
| reservations systems.
|
| Another solution is a huge deposit.
| floren wrote:
| I think online reservations are kind of a problem by being so
| low-friction and often free.
|
| I'm seeing more and more restaurants requiring a significant
| deposit with a reservation, because apparently there are a
| lot of no-shows. I kind of suspect that people are making
| several reservations for the same night, then deciding on the
| day which place they want to go to. Why not, when it takes
| about 3 clicks to go from Google Maps to a completed
| reservation? The deposits are OpenTable & friends' way of
| solving a problem that was introduced by their own product!
|
| It seems like the basic effort of picking up a phone and
| actually speaking to a person at the restaurant or campground
| to make the reservation would have two positive effects: it
| adds a little friction so it's not as easy to make half a
| dozen reservations, and when you _speak_ to that person it
| reinforces in your mind that you have made an agreement to
| show up for this thing.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| If you camp like they did in the 60s?
|
| I don't. I have a modern backpack with a camel pack and
| lightweight tent and electric lantern _et cetera_. But those
| are one-time costs. And they're totally optional. Car camping
| is still highly accessible and cheap as hell.
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| None of those things relate to being charged $15 per night
| per person for a spot with no facilities where you carry
| everything out 5km from the nearest transport.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _None of those things relate to being charged $15 per
| night per person for a spot with no facilities_
|
| Back-country rangers have to be paid. And campers cause
| more damage than day hikers. That requires enforcement and
| mitigation. I believe NPS fees have tracked under inflation
| over the decades. Camping, based on fees alone, is cheaper
| than it once was. (And if you don't want to pay the Park
| Service there are our National Forests.)
| dahart wrote:
| > Camping, based on fees alone, is cheaper than it once
| was.
|
| This sounds right to me, a lot of my local parks seem to
| have rarely or never increased fees for decades. Several
| nearby canyon parks have had the same fees as long as I
| can remember. I keep expecting an increase, and am
| consistently surprised year after year that the prices
| stay fixed, making it relatively cheaper each year. Even
| the annual park fees are super low, making it incredibly
| easy to amortize the per-night cost of camping to be even
| cheaper, provided you want to do it more than once or
| twice in a year.
| aaronax wrote:
| So much bloat in campgrounds. Paved pads, 50A electric, game
| rooms, continental breakfasts, ridiculous playgrounds, etc. The
| economical options are still out there, mostly state parks and
| city run venues. Don't be surprised when they don't have a pull
| through spot that can accomodate an $80,000 fifth wheel with
| two AC's though.
| macksd wrote:
| It was fairly recently that I discovered people in my state
| were trying to book camping trips (and RV trips) 6 months in
| advance (and then just not going if they couldn't) because
| there are a few reservable spots that everybody wants to get.
| It baffles me that even living near a national forest, most
| people aren't just driving into it and finding an empty spot to
| camp. Even with all the unpleasantness, people seem to think
| they MUST book go to a crowded place where all the nature has
| been cleared away to make room for someone to park their tent
| trailer night after night. I take friends camping with me and
| show them spots I just found myself in the forest and they're
| amazed at how quiet, beautiful, and easy it is to just decide
| at the last minute we're gonna go pitch a tent in the forest.
|
| It seems to me that a lot of the things people think are
| expensive are things that they unnecessarily insist on relying
| on someone else for, and / or that they do not lower their
| demand for regardless of the price. Well then, of course it's
| expensive.
| bombcar wrote:
| People don't like "actual camping" now that we have campsites
| with toilets, showers, and all sorts of amenities.
| nanidin wrote:
| The concept of pulling into a National Forest (or other BLM
| land) and setting up a tent anywhere is jarring for someone
| that isn't familiar with it already. The absolute freedom
| (and accompanying rules that aren't available on site, but
| that you're expected to abide by) is daunting when you've
| been conditioned that in order to stay somewhere you must pay
| and that there will be an obvious place to park your vehicle.
|
| The first time I did it, I felt like I was doing something
| wrong and that a ranger could show up at any time to ticket
| me for camping too close to the road or doing something else
| wrong. Forums are full of warnings to use apps to make sure
| you're not on someone's private property adjacent to or
| embedded within the public land, lest they show up with a
| shotgun.
|
| A lot of people have never been introduced to the concept of
| public land in a way that makes it seem like a viable/legit
| option.
| emptybits wrote:
| Article says the three components of going to a ballgame that
| have increased the most since 1960 are: parking (66x), soda
| (27x), and beer (19x).
|
| Pretty wild. So a suggestion: The American family parks somewhere
| cheap, takes public transit to their favorite family outing, then
| consumes less soda and beer. Enjoy the ballgame in a better-
| than-1960 stadium, while also chipping away at an environmental
| and obesity situation that 1960 never knew!
| chrismarlow9 wrote:
| I think it's a matter of alternatives. Sure I can do all that,
| or I can drive down the road to a sports bar and pay a normal
| price for everything and watch the game and be back home in 15
| minutes.
|
| You have to get with the times and eliminate all that. Sell a
| VR package where I can watch the game as though I am sitting
| behind first base. Bonus if my buddy across the country can sit
| next to me and we can chat.
|
| They're trying to continue to make money in a world with
| locality rules and limited space, and we are increasingly
| entering one where your location doesn't matter. Covid just
| pushed this agenda a little harder than it was naturally
| playing out.
| emptybits wrote:
| Absolutely, but sports bars and VR chats aren't (yet?)
| "America's Favorite Family Outings", per TFA.
| neutronicus wrote:
| You can't really count on the Light Rail here (Baltimore).
|
| Might have a great experience, might be stuck at the station
| for an hour waiting for a train. We used to do what you suggest
| when I was a kid (park at the light rail terminus, ride in to
| Orioles games), but ... that was back when it used to run more-
| or-less reliably.
| DEveritt wrote:
| Can people not enjoy a movie without soda and popcorn?
| DiffEq wrote:
| While I understand the purpose, and the intrigue of the things
| discussed in this article, the title itself is inaccurate. My
| experience growing up in MT is that we did none of these things,
| nor did my peers. Most of the things we did were free and still
| are....like going for a walk, a hike, a bike ride, plinking, etc
| as a family.
| bombcar wrote:
| I think they're talking about "yearly activities" - at least in
| the southwest it was relatively common for families to take a
| "vacation" each summer which was usually centered around
| something like going to Disneyland, or traveling somewhere,
| etc.
|
| Depending on how wealthy you were, there was a wide variation
| on what and how - poorer kids in my class would go to Magic
| mountain for a day (drive up early, drive home), richer kids
| would go to Disneyland for a few days and stay in the hotel.
| The nice thing was that you could have friends from class who
| were vastly different "wealth" go to the same park (the poorer
| kids would go for the day, but meet up with their friends who
| were staying at the hotel).
|
| From what I remember we never really cared one way or the
| other, we just had fun.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| The underlying causes are probably the ones underlying
| https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
| PaulHoule wrote:
| For these particular services I think
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease
|
| is more like it. That is, a Raspberry Pi is a much more
| powerful computer than the IBM 360/75 that planned the moon
| mission and costs orders of magnitude less but there has been
| no productivity improvement for baseball players.
|
| Movies are an entirely business than they were back in the day.
| I remember _Ghostbusters_ being in the theater for more than a
| year, and back then there were not just the first-run theaters
| that charged full price but many second-run theaters that had
| cut-rate double features (I remember seeing one of _Gremlins_
| and _The Dark Crystal_ )
|
| Today home video "competes" with theaters in some sense, a
| month of Netflix costs less than one movie ticket but the
| consequence isn't downward price pressures on theaters but
| exactly the opposite because home video demolished the second-
| run theaters leaving the first-run theaters to go on their own
| trajectory.
|
| (And as for TV sets and things to plug into TV sets... Today's
| TV offers better quality than was imaginable in the 1960s and
| is cheap in comparison. It's astonishing what people spent for
| old game consoles like the Atari 2600, what a VCR and tapes
| cost in 1980, ...)
| turns0ut wrote:
| Problem with such theories is people are making the choices
| as to what laws and interpretation of them are, not magic.
|
| The people in charge have gotten much richer than average
| people.
|
| That's not magic or unexplainable. It's explainable in very
| easy terms; humans are taking advantage of other humans.
|
| Sorry; the magical thinking must stop. It's people
| intentionally designing policy to empower them at others
| expense: https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/27/business/job-
| insecurity-o...
|
| Economic theories are just another form of "god spoke to me,
| and said for every 10 widgets you produce, I own 9 to exploit
| for myself".
|
| It's just people being biased and manipulative for their own
| gain.
|
| Edit: asset valuations are often self reported and inflated
| to fake wealth. Fake social media accounts influence millions
| in spend, faking public interest. What economists are
| measuring is illusory.
| baryphonic wrote:
| > That's not magic or unexplainable. It's explainable in
| very easy terms; humans are taking advantage of other
| humans.
|
| I'd argue that the average employer is less exploitative
| today, and regardless, exploitation can't account for what
| happened pre-1970. Did a switch flip somewhere among all
| employers to make exploitation really strong starting in
| 1971? That isn't magic thinking?
|
| > Economic theories are just another form of "god spoke to
| me, and said for every 10 widgets you produce, I own 9 to
| exploit for myself".
|
| Sorry, this is nonsense. Someone can have loads of valid
| complaints about economic theory, but "god spoke to me" is
| not one of them.
|
| I have a theory: the policy changes since the early 70s
| have all been about shifting downside risk from a
| credentialed elite to the masses. When upside risk is
| decoupled from downside risk, and one group of people get
| to shift their downside risk to everyone else, then we
| should expect to see wages uncorrelated with productivity,
| an increase in inequality and less likelihood of upper
| middle-class and above to fall into poverty. We have
| observed all three. This tracks with an increase in the
| regulatory administrative state (especially decoupled from
| political accountability), the increase in university
| credentials as a sorting mechanism (and _de facto_
| insurance policy[0]) and the number of practicing
| attorneys[1].
|
| None of this explanation comes "from god," but rather from
| data.
|
| [0]https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/10/education/study-
| shows-col...
|
| [1]https://associatesmind.com/2013/08/19/historical-growth-
| rate...
| turns0ut wrote:
| Human agency gives rise to economic observation, not the
| opposite. But their observation after the fact has been
| leveraged by lawmakers to dictate agency valuable to
| politicians.
|
| The public has neither authority or intelligence to
| falsify it; so yeah it's essentially the same "believe us
| cause you have no choice" thinking.
|
| So we end up with specialized collective agency capture
| based upon the obvious; humans do things. May as well
| convince them there's a very specific reason (nation
| state pride and success) built upon outdated philosophy.
|
| Economists get the order of operations of their math
| right. They're just not saying anything that's
| mathematically interesting. It's daily life logistics.
|
| Fake social media accounts are linked to instigating the
| Zack Snyder JL cut, fraudulent asset value statements
| come up all the time when it comes to Trump and friends.
| The valuations economists rely on are made up. May as
| we'll be magic.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It's usually hard to say if people are better or worse off.
| Back in the 19th century Europeans weren't all that sure if
| they were better off or worse of than the Romans.
|
| Today's cars are better than cars were in the 1960s in
| every way. People live in bigger and better houses. Post-
| Starbucks you can find a good independent espresso bar even
| in small towns in the flyover states.
|
| I remember the demagogue
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_LaRouche
|
| talking about the decline and fall of the US in terms of
| the decline in the number of hospital beds. But the truth
| is it's a good thing and not a bad thing: back in the day
| you would spend weeks in the hospital after getting heart
| surgery, now they know you're better off going home and
| being moderately active as soon as you can.
|
| The marxist argument that capitalism is a scam because
| somebody other than the worker makes a profit doesn't ring
| true with me because I've had jobs where I didn't produce
| enough value to earn my pay and it was always an enormously
| stressful situation that ended in tears.
| turns0ut wrote:
| Kings of old could not go buy Wagyu at the super market.
|
| We don't need the patronizing and pontificating of the
| past to see some people do real work producing stuff and
| services and some use a pen to claim a portion for
| themselves.
|
| Ye olde English gibberish to make sense of that is
| unnecessary. Physical reality does not operate on human
| philosophy.
| zaptrem wrote:
| "Pen to claim a portion for themselves" ignores capital
| risk, entrepreneurial thinking, connections, and other
| value those pen-bearers brought to the table. There would
| be no "real work" or stuff to produce if not for those
| creating well-defined and stable roles for the rest of
| us.
|
| There are many arguments you can make about how the pen-
| bearers have an unfair advantage from the start, or how
| their risk is at times unnecessarily subsidized, but
| deciding their entire existence is evil is silly.
| turns0ut wrote:
| All the risk is distributed among the population; failure
| on the part of the corporation means the real resources
| and energy used prior to failure are lost to others, and
| plenty of instances of a business failure being given
| another shot with extensive capital infusions is common.
|
| Physical laws don't care about human philosophy.
|
| I don't actually care what you think is "silly". I never
| used evil, you inferred.
|
| There's no greater good, no higher purpose; what's
| happening is unchecked exhaustion of resources. Call it
| good, evil, silly; personally I see such arguments as a
| thought ending cop out. At best, acquiescence you have no
| power to change things so you toss your hands up and call
| it some adverb.
| edmcnulty101 wrote:
| Immigration from non-european countries exploded right around
| that time due to the immigration and nationality act.
|
| I don't know if that's co-orelation or causation.
|
| https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/ft_20...
| hristov wrote:
| This is a great site except for the Hayek quote in the end. One
| of the bad things that happened in 1971 is that people started
| listening to scumbags like Hayek, instead of economists like
| Maynard Keynes who genuinely wanted the economy to help
| everyone and make the entire country richer and more powerful.
|
| The post word war economic order was Keynesian. It created the
| greatest economic boom known to mankind. Then people got greedy
| and the ideas of the kinds of Hayek got in vogue. Not only did
| the middle class get screwed but the philosophy of Hayek and
| the like made it seem like it was completely necessary and
| cosmically just that the middle class must get screwed.
| [deleted]
| retcon wrote:
| In the UK the 1980 banking act introduced formerly excluded
| commercial banks to housing loans and simultaneously increased
| the statutory maximum loan value from 3* single wage earners
| salary to 5* combined household income of married couples.
| Previously only mutual savings and loan member societies aka
| building societies could lend private housing loans. Not only
| now was the public forced into paying for profit margins, but
| access to capital enjoyed by commercial banks vastly outgunned
| the much more regulated thrifts who eg couldn't easily raise
| their offer rates above long term deposit bases. Disastrous in
| the up rate eighties. Louis Ranieri of Solomon Brothers fame
| opened The Mortgage Corporation in London and shipped in top
| trading talent but the thrifts not only knew nothing about
| their books but weren't persuaded to unload like the accidental
| priming of the US mortgage market. Although profit seeking it
| seemed only Ranieri ever gave a damn to do anything that might
| have saved UK S&Ls. Nothing contributed to the dissolution of
| the family more than this legislative enforcement of the
| necessity for one of any separating couple to forgo the ability
| to afford a home.
|
| P.S. Increasing the lending limit naturally turbocharged
| inflation. Adjusting your books to manage changing rates
| environment requires at least functional treasury and cash
| desks. Into this century several household name UK mutuals
| turned into banks didn't have their own CHAPS terminal.
| (Clearing House Automated Payments. Entry level facility for a
| even a token treasury function. Edit: for that matter even for
| a small company such as ours.)
|
| Edit: added about the rates market and the abysmal neglect of
| UK capital economic underpinnings. Things were so desperate and
| freewheeling the largest UK thrift only was persuaded to return
| the six billion it's actuaries deemed in excess of pension fund
| requirements at the time of demutualization in 2018. No carry
| paid. Edit2: only Ranieri.. have / gave a damn. Ed3 Louis' name
| correctly.
| Lendal wrote:
| And yet pro events and Disney consistently sell out or are
| packed. So there must be additional complicating factors at
| work here.
| juve1996 wrote:
| It's not really that surprising. There are a lot of rich
| people in America/the world that can afford these things,
| which is why prices raise, and the middle class/poor are
| further left out.
| nxm wrote:
| Force of globalization was/is too strong to turn back time
| ppierald wrote:
| The going to a ball game is an interesting example. I think there
| are financial disincentives at play, most notably, the price of
| beer. There are likely forces at play that will maximize the
| dollar intake while minimizing the amount consumed. This is not
| popcorn (still expensive) we are talking about. If beer were 1/2
| as expensive, then people would drink 2x more and spend the same
| amount, but the effect on society would be much worse. We would
| have more fights in the stands, more drunk driving, and other
| negative effects. So by jacking up the price of a beer, fans can
| enjoy one or two, then realize they don't have the budget for a
| 3rd or 4th and cut it off there. They cut off sales in the 7th
| inning to prevent most of those effects I mentioned.
|
| But that's just a theory ... a beer theory.
| burlesona wrote:
| I am very skeptical of how they calculated the baseball numbers.
|
| Yes of course if you buy a whole bunch of stadium food it is
| expensive, but one of the entire gimmicks of the baseball stadium
| is that they make most of the money on beer and food. The thing
| is, food is optional! This is a form of progressive pricing that
| allows the team to charge people who are price insensitive more
| while still being affordable.
|
| Most baseball stadiums also have constant or frequent promotions
| for seating in the outfield berm, or standing room only, or last-
| minute walk ups, etc, which are _very_ cheap. I recall walking up
| to the Astros stadium and getting $8 tickets just as the game was
| starting. So if you really want to go to a game but you don't
| have very much money, there are usually ways that you can get in
| for very cheap.
|
| Parking is weird to include because it varies a LOT depending on
| the setting. Much like the airport, there are usually unofficial
| parking options just a bit further from the stadium that are much
| cheaper than the official parking - though this is less true for
| the suburban stadiums.
|
| One last thing is to note that the experience at the stadium has
| changed enormously. Stadiums in the 60s were basically a bigger
| version of high school bleachers. Now they're luxury palaces.
|
| What has really happened is the stadium experience used to be
| much more equal, and now it reflects and capitalizes on increased
| economic inequality - offering wealthy fans a super-premium
| experience for a ridiculous price.
|
| I think that's the actual problem. What used to be an extremely
| "democratic" past time is now an extremely unequal experience.
| And while I don't think that is baseball's fault, I think it's a
| negative reflection of the broader economic changes since the
| 1950s.
| decafninja wrote:
| Also at what point does watching a game live become worth it?
|
| I can pay a lot of money to get a good seat with a good view of
| the action. Or I can pay a lot less and get nosebleed seats -
| but why? At that point watching the game on TV seems to make
| more sense. Yes there is the "atmosphere" of being in the
| bleachers, but I'm not sure that's still worth being stuck up
| in the nosebleed tiers.
| allturtles wrote:
| IMO even from the 'nosebleeds' a live game is better than the
| TV experience, because you can see all the action. The
| broadcast version generally follows the ball, so you can
| never see what the runners are doing.
| bombcar wrote:
| One of the best _remote_ experiences I have had was very
| early on with MLB.tv where somehow we got access to _all_
| cameras in the stadium; you could pick the one you wanted
| to watch, or even open up multiple flash windows.
|
| It was kind of amazing.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| I don't know why this isn't the standard pro sports
| streaming experience.
|
| At least I can watch NFL game replays on All-22 cam,
| though it's delayed several days for some reason.
| bombcar wrote:
| I suspect it isn't common because of advertising (still)
| - at some point it may become an option but they'll want
| their advertising.
|
| For MLB it was working explicitly because MLB.tv did
| _NOT_ get advertising at all, during commercial breaks
| you could watch the cameramen wander around and look at
| the stands, heh.
| bombcar wrote:
| The nosebleed isn't bad _if you want the enjoyment of being
| with other fans_ - but a local sports bar can often provide a
| similar experience.
|
| I know for baseball I preferred the nosebleed seats as I
| would be able to see the "whole field and action" even if a
| bit further away; some of the worst seats I ever had for
| watching the actual game was right behind third base;
| couldn't see much of anything but third base.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I agree, especially when looking at Mets and Yankees tickets.
| The price difference isn't really there.
|
| We are a huge baseball family do a big extended family trip to
| the Yankees every year - usually $5-12 for 30 bleacher seats to
| a weekday game. I'm a Mets fan, and we usually do a few of
| games a year.
|
| One of the things about the baseball experience is there are
| lots of ways to enjoy it. Usually we do one "big" trip where we
| score a deal on a resale ticket behind the plate or first base,
| often including food for $100-150. Then we'll do a couple of
| SRO or upper deck trips with a $5-12 ticket. And we'll also do
| lower level outfield tickets for $30-80.
|
| I grew up I the 80s, and times weren't all magic and
| marshmallows then either. My dad worked for the city and my mom
| was a nurse. We couldn't afford fancy baseline seats at big
| city ballparks then either.
|
| Baseball is different in smaller markets though. If you're in
| Pittsburgh or Cincinnati, your baseball ticket options are very
| different.
| allturtles wrote:
| > Yes of course if you buy a whole bunch of Stadium food it is
| expensive, but one of the entire gimmicks of the baseball
| stadium is that they make most of the money on beer and food.
| The thing is, food is optional! This is a form of progressive
| pricing that allows the team to charge people who are price
| insensitive more while still being affordable.
|
| I don't think it's realistic to expect a family of four to have
| a good time sitting through a three hour baseball game without
| any food. And if their historical pricing data is correct, food
| and drink prices were comparatively much more reasonable in the
| 60s, so it's not a inherent property of ballparks to have
| outrageous concession prices.
|
| > One last thing is to note that the experience at the stadium
| has changed enormously. Stadiums in the 60s were basically a
| bigger version of high school bleachers. Now they're luxury
| palaces.
|
| Here's a picture of the seats at Coors Field today [0]. Here's
| some pictures of 1960s baseball stadium seating [1][2]. They
| look pretty much the same to me. Now you get a cupholder, I
| guess?
|
| [0]: https://www.thedenverchannel.com/sports/rockies/heres-
| what-g... [1]:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/19/sports/baseball/al-jackso...
| [2]: https://nxstrib-com.go-vip.net/wp-
| content/uploads/sites/5/20...
| kgermino wrote:
| > I don't think it's realistic to expect a family of four to
| have a good time sitting through a three hour baseball game
| without any food.
|
| There's a big leap from not wanting to spend a lot on
| concessions to not eating anything. This isn't a movie
| theater. I usually just bring snacks from home and/or but
| food outside the stadium and bring it in.
|
| It's gotten harder as we've locked things down for "security"
| since you usually can't bring a big bag in anymore, but even
| with kids it's very doable.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| I think this varies for every stadium right? some let you,
| some dont. Almost all are not advertising the fact that
| they let you if they do.
| neutronicus wrote:
| There was a viral post on social media about a couple
| Orioles fans who brought a gallon ziploc of spaghetti and
| meatballs to Camden Yards (park policy says you can bring
| in one gallon ziploc) and ate out of the bag with a fork in
| their seats.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| I thought they didn't let you bring in outside food these
| days.
| bombcar wrote:
| Most will because of eating issues/disorders/ADA/babies -
| but they ban things like unpeeled oranges because fans
| throw them at the players.
|
| Check your local stadium's policies.
| ahtihn wrote:
| > I don't think it's realistic to expect a family of four to
| have a good time sitting through a three hour baseball game
| without any food.
|
| No wonder Americans are so fat.
|
| Really, 3 hours without food isn't realistic?
| allturtles wrote:
| I don't know if you have children, but my kids will not
| generally go 3 hours without eating without getting grumpy,
| no. As an aside, they are not fat (and neither am I). Ball
| games are also frequently scheduled at meal times (around
| noon for day games or around 6pm for night games). You may
| want to also consider that your comment comes across as
| pretty insulting.
| watwut wrote:
| How old they are? And seriously, an apple and maybe small
| sandwich or crackers should be enough for kid for three
| hours.
|
| Except babies, kids don't need full mean every three
| hours. Few fruits + something and definitely enough, no
| need to buy food in place.
| allturtles wrote:
| This is turning into a parenting advice thread which is
| pretty far afield from the point. Yes there are potential
| workarounds at ballparks that let you bring in food. If
| you check in advance on exactly what's allowed, you can
| often pack what you need.
|
| The point of the OP is that you didn't used to have to do
| that. You could just go to the ballpark, have some food
| and drink and enjoy yourself on a middle-class income,
| without worrying about being gouged for $10+ for a hot
| dog or $15 for a beer.
| luma wrote:
| The parent comment to which you are responding and the
| comments replying to you are an interesting insight to the
| mindset behind the comments: nobody can even _conceive_ of
| going to a ball park for 3 entire hours and not gorging on
| concessions.
|
| The concept of a beer/soda and a hotdog or whatever have
| been so burned into the American psyche that people have a
| hard time separating the snacks from the sport.
| llbeansandrice wrote:
| I mean it's longer than that. You eat before the game so
| you have to go out somewhere hopefully near the stadium or
| worse at home. Some are in downtown areas and are
| accessible others [are not.](https://preview.redd.it/39fpjl
| mmvui31.jpg?width=1024&auto=we...) The game itself might
| last 3 hours but getting in and out, travel time to the
| stadium, are you getting there when the game starts or
| before?
|
| You can easily push over 4 hours between food. How well is
| a young kid going to do for +4hrs outside with no food or
| water?
| watwut wrote:
| The very odd thing is the assumption that of one did not
| bought cola, there is nothing to drink. I used to carry
| bottle of water and quick snack in case, it is not big
| deal.
| mmmpop wrote:
| > How well is a young kid going to do for +4hrs outside
| with no food or water?
|
| Eat a meal directly beforehand? Pack a granola bar.. no
| one at the gates are going to frisk you for that.
|
| Coors Field had water fountains all over the place, so I
| think this is all nitpicking a valid point about
| progressive pricing.
| njarboe wrote:
| When I went to an Oakland A's game about a decade ago you
| were allowed to bring in your own food (not alcohol, of
| course). Not sure if that is still the case or if other
| stadiums allow that also. Getting a hot dog is fun, but you
| could bring in peanuts, popcorn, sandwiches, etc. and many
| people did.
| crftr wrote:
| I'm a Padres fan, and I regularly see folks bring in Jimmy
| John sandwiches and candy. It's not a secret, but rarely
| publicized either.
| bombcar wrote:
| FOOD AND BEVERAGE POLICIES
|
| The San Diego Padres permit guests to bring food into
| Petco Park intended for individual consumption (not for
| groups of individuals) and should be consumed in one's
| seat. Outside food cannot be brought into any ballpark
| restaurant, club lounge, or suite. Guests must also
| adhere to the following:
|
| All food items should be wrapped, bagged, or left inside
| a container to avoid spillage.
|
| Food that might be thrown as a projectile must be sliced
| or sectioned (i.e., oranges, apples, and other fruits).
|
| Food containers must be soft-sided and comply with Petco
| Park bag policies.
|
| Guests are allowed to bring one factory-sealed plastic
| bottled water that is still, clear, and unflavored and
| that is one (1) liter (32 ounces) or less, and soft-sided
| single juice or milk containers or ADA required liquids
| in a sealed container.
|
| One (1) liter reusable water bottles (no glass) are
| permitted and must be empty upon entry into the ballpark.
|
| California liquor regulations prohibit guests from
| bringing alcoholic beverages into Petco Park. Security
| officers at every gate will inspect packages, bags, and
| purses to prevent guests from bringing bottles, cans, or
| any other type of liquid containers of alcohol into Petco
| Park.
|
| Seems pretty reasonable all things considered.
| odysseus wrote:
| Yep. Yankee Stadium (at least when I went) allowed this
| too. We brought homemade deli sandwiches for the family and
| bought beers at the stadium.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| > I am skeptical how they calculated baseball numbers
|
| I went to a Giants game on Saturday and let me tell you they
| are underestimating how much things cost. The cheapest hotdogs
| were $11 + taxes and the cheapest beer was $12 + taxes. The
| cheapest and the saddest tickets still cost around $20.
|
| Also, it's been almost a decade since I saw a $9 movie. The
| only time I've had cheaper was when VC funded movie pass was
| like a thing for 2 months.
| mikkergp wrote:
| > This is a form of progressive pricing that allows the team to
| charge people who are price insensitive more while still being
| affordable.
|
| Is it not dystopian that we live in a world where a working
| class family can't take their kids to a baseball game and buy
| them a hotdog and a pop.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Is it not dystopian that we live in a world where a working
| class family can't take their kids to a baseball game and buy
| them a hotdog and a pop.
|
| There are baseball games that aren't MLB. And they are more
| affordable. And there are more of them.
| bombcar wrote:
| The local high school games have hotdogs and pop; sometimes
| the local _little league_ games have a food truck. Prices
| are almost too reasonable at times.
| LambdaComplex wrote:
| I'm not gonna argue that we're _not_ living in a dystopia,
| but I feel like that 's a weird place to draw the line
| mikkergp wrote:
| Why would this be anywhere near the line? I think it's
| squarely within the line :-)
| thehappypm wrote:
| Minor league baseball! I always loved going to the Scranton -
| Wilkes Barre Red Barons as a kid. Just went back for a game
| this year and food and bev is cheap, parking and getting
| in/out is easy. A great family experience -- and as a kid
| it's really similar. I caught a foul ball at a Red Barons
| game and it was more magical than anything Shea Stadium or
| Yankee Stadium ever gave me.
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| >The thing is, food is optional!
|
| Have you ever gone anywhere with kids? If you can't bring food
| with you, it's not optional.
|
| Do you enjoy drinking beer? Probably 90%+ of adults who go to a
| baseball game would like to enjoy some drinks during a 4 hour
| game with so much downtime.
|
| So this argument of "but it's optional!" is pretty dumb. That's
| like going to a movie theatre and saying "well, popcorn and
| soda/drinks are optional!! look how cheap it is!". I mean,
| sure, but it's also a ridiculous argument for nearly everyone.
| Again, especially if one has kids.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I've been to a few different stadiums and been in several
| different suites (as a vendor, not like I'd ever pay for that
| crap). A lot of the game is spent watching TV screens in the
| suite watching the same thing that people at home are seeing
| for free-ish. Jerry World (aka where the Cowboys play for those
| not familiar) has ground level suites where you are actually
| standing slightly below the field. Once the game starts and the
| teams are along the sidelines in their normal placements, all
| you see are the backsides of the players waiting to do their
| jobs. Again, you spend the majority of the time looking up at
| the giant TV to see actual game play. Clear evidence that a
| fool and his money are easily parted.
| bombcar wrote:
| Even worse - I've been to the suites at Petco park; where a
| Major League Baseball game was going on, and everyone was
| watching basketball or other sports on the TVs. Nobody
| besides me and one other dude even bothered to go out on the
| balcony and watch the game.
|
| Of course, these were "free tickets" from vendor schmooze, so
| perhaps that's understandable.
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| Those ground level suites at the Cowboys game look pretty
| cool to me. It's a different level of experience, like
| literally being in the middle of the action, getting the same
| vantage point as players and coaches. The ones I don't
| understand are the nose bleed suites I've seen at basketball
| arenas
| dylan604 wrote:
| But it's not the same vantage. You're literally standing
| below them. Their feet are at your chest, your head is at
| their butt level. By the time the teams bring out all of
| their gear like big fans, work out equipment, storage
| cases, etc, a large portion of your direct view of the
| field is blocked. Then, even if you do get a view of the
| field, once the ball gets to your part of the view, the
| teams all mass around to get the same view you are wanting
| so now it is a solid wall of legs.
|
| It's a much better view as an on field something. I've been
| on the field as a credentialed photo/video person to so
| many stadiums. Been "on TV" more than once as I was caught
| near the action and people start texting "I saw you on TV"
| kind of stuff. I've even pulled another person out of the
| way as they were keyed in on the wrong part and the play
| was coming right at them (some people have zero situational
| awareness). That level of on field experience of sporting
| events is better than any suite experience.
| sheepybloke wrote:
| A lot of baseball stadiums also allow you to bring food and
| sealed pop into the stadium. My wife and I stop at the Gus's or
| Safeway around the corner of Oracle Park and grab a sandwich or
| snacks and a pop before we go to the Giants game. Add in
| outfield tickets and CalTrain and we can go pretty
| inexpensively.
| throw8383833jj wrote:
| "in order to afford them, today's American families have to work
| up to 2x as many hours as they did 60 years ago."
|
| This is the type of thing I've been talking about. There's been a
| massive drop in living standards over the last 50 years. and if
| you think not seeing mickey mouse is a problem, geez, just take a
| look at shelter and transportation.
| cptskippy wrote:
| > Before we get into the numbers, let's compare how much families
| earned in 1960 to what they earn today.
|
| > Today's median family earns considerably more, at $84k per
| year, or $40.38/hr. ... But when it comes to traditional family
| outings, the purchasing power of that income has declined.
|
| I'm not sure this is a fair comparison because it doesn't
| distinguish between single and dual income families.
|
| https://www.pewresearch.org/ft_dual-income-households-1960-2...
|
| According to Pew Research, only 25% of families in the 1960s were
| dual income vs 60% today.
|
| Not only have wages not kept up with inflation, but, even with
| dual incomes, families have less purchasing power. On top of
| that, they have less free time because the work of maintaining a
| household didn't go away.
| krsrhe wrote:
| fallingfrog wrote:
| I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the official
| inflation statistics are total hogwash. If rent has risen faster
| than inflation, and food has risen faster than inflation, and
| medical care, education, gas, and trips to Disneyland have risen
| faster than inflation... I mean, what do we call that? Inflation
| inflation? By definition we're supposed to be looking at the
| value of money such that the cost of all those things stay
| constant. The numbers are cooked. Maybe certain kinds of consumer
| goods which were manufactured overseas have gotten cheaper in
| real terms, but that doesn't cancel out the currency getting
| debased.
| jrwoodruff wrote:
| The other piece of this that isn't accounted for is the demand on
| family budgets that didn't previously exist - cable, internet,
| cell phones, streaming services, higher grocery prices, higher
| insurance costs. The family budget is getting squeezed hard
| before any of these pleasant weekend outings or vacations. And
| then when you do get to the park, concessions, upgrades and other
| upsells make the entry-level experience feel subpar.
| bushbaba wrote:
| insurance costs. Heck it's ~4k/year even if your primary
| employer pays the majority of the cost. And then you've got a
| deductible to hit...etc.
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| Self employed I'm at about $1800/month in PREMIUMS for a
| family of 4 for medical+dental... not to mention the 10k+
| deductible.
| stripline wrote:
| Well you no longer have to pay the lamplighter, milkman, weekly
| blockbuster rentals, etc.
| hristov wrote:
| Two of these things -- baseball and disneyland are clear
| monopolies. The other thing -- movies is not really that
| expensive if you do not buy the food and you should not be
| teaching your kids to eat at the movies anyways.
|
| A lot of people are talking about the way the working class has
| been screwed over since the seventies. That is a good point.
|
| But another more practical point is that if you do not want to
| pay through the nose you have to keep your wits about you, know
| the price gouging monopolies and avoid them. Take your kids to a
| national park instead. Or to a soccer game. Or to a museum.
|
| One of the ways America is becoming a country for the rich is
| that monopolies are becoming more acceptable both in mass culture
| and politically and legally. As an ordinary person you can push
| against that. The easiest and first way you should push against
| is with your wallet and with your spending. Then you can do the
| more complex thing -- elect politicians that will not tolerate
| monopolies.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| I will teach my children, if I ever have any, to eat at the
| movies.
|
| My girlfriend and I always try to support our local theater by
| getting as much concessions as possible. Movie theaters are a
| very important part of my life and I don't want them to die. A
| movie ticket wouldn't fund a thing, especially with inflation
| now.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Doesn't seem that great to teach your kids to eat some of the
| worst food just to support a venue.
|
| It also sounds like self-deceit tbh. "Totally just eating
| this slurpee and vegetable oil 'butter' popcorn to support
| the local theater!"
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Maybe his kids will have a summer HS job there
| el_benhameen wrote:
| You can teach them that it's a special, infrequent thing.
| My kids eat lots of fruits and vegetables and I don't keep
| junk food around the house. But for me, shitty theater
| popcorn is part of the experience, and we go to the movies
| rarely enough that it's easy to say "hey, this stuff isn't
| good for you so we're not going to have a lot, but let's
| enjoy ourselves now and then".
| casion wrote:
| Baseball is a monopoly by who? Certainly not MLB, they're just
| the biggest game in town but by no means the only game, nor
| even the most common, nor even the most expensive in many
| places.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| The thing I wonder about with movies and food: where is the
| competition? Where is the free market thing? If the price of
| tickets and food is an issue for people to not go to the cinema
| more often, surely a competitor would see that as an
| opportunity and gouge prices?
|
| I mean that's basically what Uber did with a ton of investor
| money; undercut the competition out of business. Muh free
| market.
|
| edit: oh you mentioned monopolies already, I should've finished
| reading your reply lmao
| bombcar wrote:
| Movies at least are a dying breed; the local theatre just
| closed down, and the total number of theaters in the US is
| dropping (though it's leveled out from the huge crash around
| 2000).
| pitaj wrote:
| People on HN really be throwing around terms like "monopoly"
| with no sense.
|
| How is baseball a monopoly? There's not only competition
| between teams and leagues, but with other sports!
|
| How is Disneyland a monopoly? There's not only competition with
| other theme and amusement parks, but with all forms of passive
| entertainment (plays, movies, comedy shows, music festivals)!
| JasserInicide wrote:
| Entertainment monopolies are a bit harder to quantify, but
| look at how much Disney owns (https://www.titlemax.com/wp-
| content/uploads/every-company-di...). Numerous TV
| channels/production companies. Movie studios. Many, many
| popular franchises and they're adding to it all the time. It
| may not be a monopoly by the legal definition, but at what
| point should a company not have control of this much?
| willturman wrote:
| Major League Baseball has an exemption to US anti-trust
| regulation. It's literally a federally codified monopoly.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_v._Kuhn
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Baseball_Club_v._Natio.
| ..
|
| https://blogs.fangraphs.com/baseballs-antitrust-
| exemption-a-...
| missedthecue wrote:
| Doesn't look like it was codified. It was a supreme court
| ruling that baseball was not subject to the Sherman
| Antitrust Act
| shadowofneptune wrote:
| Even then, they did not avoid calling it such. If I
| remember that case correctly they classified it as a
| cartel, making it one of the few cartels (in the sense of
| a set of companies which collude with each other) in the
| US.
| willturman wrote:
| You're right - codified was a poor word to use as the
| exception was not written into law but established with a
| Supreme Court ruling.
|
| Major League Baseball's anti-trust exemption was formally
| established 100 years ago and has been upheld by multiple
| subsequent rulings.
|
| The necessity of the exemption is currently being
| explored by the Senate Judiciary Committee who has
| requested a formal justification for the exemption as it
| applies to minor league baseball from commissioner
| Manfred. [1] Being the only professional league operating
| in the United States that has an anti-trust exemption, it
| should be interesting to see what justification MLB comes
| up with in the context of current labor law.
|
| https://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/Senators-ask-MLB-
| why-a...
| kingbirdy wrote:
| For many people (esp. kids and "Disney adults"),
| Disney{land,world} isn't a type of theme park, it's its own
| experience that could never be substituted with Six Flags or
| Universal Studios, and Disney clearly has a "monopoly" on
| Disney-branded parks. I believe that was OP's point. Another
| commenter has already explained how Major League Baseball is
| literally a federally granted monopoly.
| brewdad wrote:
| > How is baseball a monopoly?
|
| Major League Baseball literally has an antitrust exemption
| granted by the US Supreme Court and has for 100 years.
|
| "MLB's antitrust exemption empowers the league and its clubs
| to conspire in ways that might otherwise run afoul of
| antitrust law. The current version of the exemption allows
| caps on minor league players' salaries (also known as wage
| fixing), denial of clubs opportunities to move to larger
| markets, and pooling of intellectual property rights, all
| without worry of antitrust litigation." [1]
|
| [1] https://sports.yahoo.com/mlb-antitrust-exemption-
| explained-r...
| sriku wrote:
| This reminded me of how in Tamil Nadu (a southern state in
| India), move ticket prices have a cap (and movie going is HUGE)
| so it stays affordable for the masses despite really good and
| well maintained theatres. So companies that run movie theatres
| charge a bomb for the food (popcorn etc). If houxan afford the
| food, that's ok, but if you cant, you can just go watch a movie
| for <$2 per seat.
| easton wrote:
| Being a Disney aficionado, I have to note: the price in the 60s
| was only to get in the park. You had to buy separate tickets for
| each attraction once you were in (either ala-carte or in a book
| that came with several categories for $3-4). They moved to the
| current model (one ticket all attractions as long as you are
| willing to wait in line) in the 80s when EPCOT opened in Florida.
|
| With inflation it's still higher today (especially if you stay at
| a hotel), but not as much as the article makes it out to be.
|
| https://clickamericana.com/topics/family-parenting/life-for-...
| hguant wrote:
| >Being a Disney aficionado, I have to note: the price in the
| 60s was only to get in the park. You had to buy separate
| tickets for each attraction once you were in
|
| The article literally covers this, both in their infographic
| for Disney, and in the paragraph preceding.
|
| >(One important clarifying note: Back in 1960, you paid for the
| park admission ticket and the rides separately. We've combined
| those costs below.)
|
| Maybe read the article before you comment about its faults...
| easton wrote:
| Was the amount per person then? The books (per my link, I'm
| guessing they changed pricing seasonally so the article is
| also probably right) were ~$4.50 per adult and included
| admission. If the number in the article was per person then
| the situation has gotten worse than it claimed, if it wasn't
| then it's better.
|
| (In any case, I missed that comment when I read the article
| the first time, you're right. Sorry!)
| EricE wrote:
| You could get day tickets at Disneyland before EPCOT opened. I
| still have some that are hand stamped and signed from the late
| 70's.
|
| The parks are out of control. You pay more for longer wait
| times. On the other hand if they lowered prices/let more people
| in, the wait times and crowding would be even worse and there
| would be complaining about that. The real problem is they just
| need more parks - some in the midwest wouldn't kill them so
| people wouldn't have to travel as far. Spread the load out.
|
| It might have just been bias growing up with Disneyland but I
| much preferred it to the magic kingdom - it seemed like they
| watered the individual parks down to encourage people to park
| hop.
|
| The real issue is I think a lot of companies just assumed they
| couldn't compete at the same level as Disney so they didn't
| even bother trying. I think Universal with Harry Potter found
| out that yes, you can steal attendees from the house of mouse
| and providing a themed experience is also doable - they are far
| from invulnerable. I'm eagerly looking forward to Universal's
| Epic Universe; hopefully it will light a fire under others (hey
| Cedar Fair - there's more to parks than just coasters!) that it
| is worth it to up their game too.
| travellingprog wrote:
| They explicitly mention that they accounted for that in their
| calculation
| sloan wrote:
| Courtesy a rentier investor class intent on not sharing the
| growth of the economy with workers.
| runako wrote:
| Once you've figured out how to pay for childcare, food, and
| college savings, you are obviously rich and can afford to take
| your family to a movie. /s
| yalogin wrote:
| This is something I have been lamenting for a while now. Taking
| the family to a basketball game is a really expensive proposition
| now. A family of 4 needs to spend more than 1000 to just lousy
| seats in the Bay Area. I don't know who goes to these games and
| how they are able to justify the cost.
| tnorthcutt wrote:
| _drivers are willing to shell out more than what is reasonable
| for a slice of asphalt._
|
| If drivers are willing to pay, isn't it reasonable? Isn't that a
| core tenet of supply and demand?
| willturman wrote:
| > But where fans are really getting taken for a ride is in the
| parking lot.
|
| Parking isn't necessary to see a baseball game at 90% of these
| venues, and shouldn't be included. Including parking in these
| comparisons at all demonstrates a lack of understanding of
| population density and transportation trends over the past 50
| years in any city large enough to support a major league baseball
| franchise. We need to lose this expectation that you just drive
| your mini-van within 200 feet of any venue with something you
| want to see.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| To be fair buying 4 round trip tickets on most transit isn't
| going to be very cheap either.
| willturman wrote:
| Children 11 and under ride for free on the MBTA in Boston,
| and there are discounts for middle and high-school students.
| A round-trip ticket for an adult is $4.80 - $2.40 each way.
| rco8786 wrote:
| This is totally out of touch with reality. Parking is
| absolutely necessary at 90% of these venues for a family.
|
| Transportation trends in the last 50 years have simply gotten
| more and more car dependent. Do you live in the US, or are you
| talking about somewhere else? Do you have children?
| Steltek wrote:
| I dunno about "90%" but I wouldn't drive to Fenway Park, even
| if it parking was free and plentiful. Hell, not even if you
| paid me. I'll take the T or I'll stay home.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Just anecdotally the nearby baseball parks are all well-
| served by trains in ways that they certainly were not 50
| years ago. BART did not exist 50 years ago, now it serves
| (directly) the Oakland A's and within walking distance the SF
| Giants. Neither Amtrak Capitol Corridor nor Caltrain existed
| 50 years ago, now Capitol Corridor serves the Oakland A's
| directly and Caltrain serves the SF Giants directly.
|
| _Increasing_ car dependence in the last 50 years is not a
| trend I am personally observing.
| bombcar wrote:
| _With a family_ it 's often much cheaper to drive the car
| _even if you overpay for parking_.
|
| Heckles, even in San Diego, where the trolley runs right
| into the stadium basically, you'd pay $5 per person round-
| trip, so you only need a family size of 3 to cost as much
| as the cheaper garages, 4 would match the "preferred" ones.
| Doesn't cost in gas, but you may be driving to the other
| end of the trolley anyway.
| willturman wrote:
| Children 12 and under ride the trolley to PetCo for
| _free_ from _free_ Park and Ride lots. Trolley fares are
| discounted to $2.50 round trip for youth (12-18),
| seniors, and disabled riders.
|
| https://www.mlb.com/padres/ballpark/transportation/public
| -tr...
| jeffbee wrote:
| Superficially cheaper, perhaps, but depends on your
| values. My children greatly prefer the train to the car,
| because riding the train is family time and riding in the
| car is a chore. Even if biking down to the BART station,
| parking your bike, and taking BART to SF then walking a
| mile to the Giants game sounds like a massive drag when
| you put it that way, they think it's a good time.
| bombcar wrote:
| Yeah, once kids can walk on their own, transit can be
| more "fun" - there are many variables beyond simple "out
| of pocket cash".
|
| I do wish more transit systems had "kids ride free"
| deals.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| In the chart, the 3 most expensive are the Red Sox, Cubs
| and Yankees. All 3 of them have excellent public transit
| to the stadiums.
|
| I have the most experience with the Cubs. Children under
| 7 are free to ride public transit in Chicago, and
| children under 11 are de-facto free - they qualify for
| half-price fare and transit workers would rather wave
| them through than do the work make the card scanner
| charge the correct amount. Public school students can get
| a transit card that lets them ride for free anyway. And
| (pre-pandemic) if you rode public transit to/from work it
| was always cheaper to get the monthly pass so riding
| to/from the game had a $0.00 marginal cost. In effect,
| parking was only something that applied to people from
| the suburbs.
| rco8786 wrote:
| > All 3 of them have excellent public transit to the
| stadiums.
|
| _IF_ your family lives somewhere that is also served by
| that transit. Most of the stadiums listed are not served
| by transit that is reasonably accessible to where
| families tend to live.
|
| > parking was only something that applied to people from
| the suburbs.
|
| Exactly. That place with all the families.
| willturman wrote:
| Park and ride lots exist exactly to facilitate suburban
| access to urban centers via public transportation. Most
| of these lots are free. Parking in a city is a luxury,
| and is not necessary for access to urban entertainment
| venues.
| rco8786 wrote:
| Again, not true for loads of places. Most American cities
| are hugely dependent on cars as the primary source of
| transportation.
| willturman wrote:
| That's obvious. It's also not necessary to drive to the
| stadium to see a baseball game in the 30 American cities
| that support Major League Baseball Teams with the
| exception of Atlanta, Dallas (Texas), Anaheim, and Kansas
| City, of which, only Atlanta has built a stadium in the
| past 25 years.
|
| Driving to a venue to park your personal metal box in the
| populated city centers where 85+% of MLB stadiums exist
| is a luxury, and is not an expectation that can be
| extrapolated to an average attendee of a Major League
| Baseball game.
|
| As mentioned by a different commenter above, I wouldn't
| even think to drive to Fenway. Or to games in San
| Francisco, Oakland, New York, Seattle, San Diego,
| Washington, and on and on.
| rco8786 wrote:
| > is a luxury, and is not an expectation that can be
| extrapolated to an average attendee of a Major League
| Baseball game
|
| This is exactly what the article is about. It used to be
| a normal thing for normal families to do, but the prices
| have gone up significantly.
|
| You wouldn't drive to Oakland? Why? It's quite literally
| a stadium surrounded by parking https://www.google.com/ma
| ps/place/RingCentral+Coliseum/@37.7...
| willturman wrote:
| Stadiums used to be on the outskirts of cities surrounded
| by huge parking lots. Candlestick, Qualcomm, Kingdome,
| Astrodome, among many others. These stadiums have been
| replaced by modern venues in the hearts of American
| cities and emphasize public transportation access and
| walkability to surrounding shopping and entertainment
| districts. Expecting to drive a car into the heart of a
| city and not pay exorbitant prices for parking is absurd.
| [1]
|
| I wouldn't drive to the Oakland Coliseum because it
| literally has a dedicated BART stop accessible by
| everywhere else in the Bay Area.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_P
| arking
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| > IF your family lives somewhere that is also served by
| that transit
|
| Well, that's not the fault of the baseball team.
|
| > Most of the stadiums listed are not served by transit
| that is reasonably accessible to where families tend to
| live.
|
| This is definitely the fault of the baseball team. Look
| at Atlanta, for example. They moved from reasonably close
| to downtown to way out in the middle of nowhere, just to
| get away from the city. What about the other sports teams
| in Atlanta? Oh, a brand new dome right next to the train
| station? Hmm...
| rco8786 wrote:
| I'm not blaming the baseball team? Unsure where that
| comment came from.
|
| The article, and my response, is just acknowledging
| reality that things have gotten more expensive including
| parking, and that mostly people still drive to these
| sorts of venues.
|
| Most people still drive to the new Atlanta dome. And
| Turner Fiekd had effectively 0 public transit prior to
| that move anyway unless you count a singular temporary
| bus shuttle route, as did Fulton Co before that. You have
| never been able to take public transit to a Braves game.
| rco8786 wrote:
| > Increasing car dependence in the last 50 years is not a
| trend I am personally observing.
|
| You're just not looking then. You mention the Giants and
| the A's but conveniently leave out the 49ers.
|
| The vast majority of families in the US do not live
| anywhere near public transit like Bart of Caltrain. I
| appreciate that they've been built, but far more roads and
| highways have been built over that same timeframe.
| jeffbee wrote:
| The 49ers moved from the almost completely car-only
| Candlestick to a new stadium in Santa Clara that is
| served directly by Capitol Corridor and ACE trains and
| has its own VTA streetcar station and is accessed by the
| San Tomas Aquino Creek and Guadalupe River bike and
| pedestrian trails. The _trend_ over the last 50 years is
| clearly away from car dependence.
| rco8786 wrote:
| > The trend over the last 50 years is clearly away from
| car dependence.
|
| It's just...not. I don't know how else to state it. Maybe
| it is for you. Maybe it is for the Bay Area. But
| nationwide it's just simply not.
| kingaillas wrote:
| >The trend over the last 50 years is clearly away from
| car dependence.
|
| Uh... no. The few streetcars and bike trails built are
| drowned out by the massive growth in suburbs and people
| living even further away from city centers (or these
| stadiums).
|
| Your _trend_ comparison is leaving out the majority of
| the picture.
| willturman wrote:
| Perhaps the 49ers were left out because the article
| references the cost to attend a _baseball_ game, whose
| league (MLB) requires a team to host 81 home games per
| season which requires much greater consideration for
| public transportation than the 8 home games hosted each
| year by professional football teams.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| People who would go to baseball games live far away from the
| stadium and would prefer to not walk or bike miles and miles to
| get there, and American public transit and biking
| infrastructure generally suck. Parking within 1000 feet of a
| venue is an expectation for most events and attendees.
| robotburrito wrote:
| I would say just go take your kids on a nice hike in a state park
| or something. Go ride bikes. Much cheaper!
| Kalanos wrote:
| the country is fuller and the world is flatter
| jeffbee wrote:
| This is really a riff on the fact that if you don't drive a car
| and eat meat the inflation is not a thing. The NYT personal
| inflation calculator makes this pretty clear. There is a sharp
| inflection around perceived inflation related to cars, airplanes,
| and animal products. If you walk to the ball game this story
| looks very different.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| The plain Quaker oatmeal I buy in 42 oz canisters is 50% more
| expensive than it was 10 months ago. I can come up with more
| examples that have nothing to do with meat or animal protein if
| you'd like.
|
| One thing you're ignoring is that even if you don't drive a car
| like myself as well, tangible stuff still has to be transported
| around. And for food, the war on fossil fuels is also a war on
| farms using Diesel powered equipment for which there is no
| replacement and nitrogen fertilizers made with natural gas.
| We've only just begun to see the effects of these two issues.
|
| OK, there is one replacement for there and a lot more people in
| the world will be experiencing it: starvation.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Ah yes, the "war on fossil fuels" in which oil prices today
| are lower than they were 10 years ago. Nice try.
| skybrian wrote:
| You don't have to eat out. Packing a picnic lunch can be done
| cheaply, and that's a traditional family outing too.
| VictorPath wrote:
| There is that, and there is also the fact that the average wage
| has fallen in the past century.
|
| Odd that the graph shows how much better the average family is
| off than in 1960, 60 years ago. As the graph shows, 1960 to 1970
| was the largest boost. And most of the family income boost from
| 1970 to now was due to the wife having to work, not higher wages.
|
| Not the case for Google L6s, but the economics of the majority of
| US workers.
| bushbaba wrote:
| Housing is expensive because it's what people can afford. I
| often wonder how much damage was done by encouraging dual
| income families. It provided temporary relief, at the expense
| of raising costs and bringing everyone back to a previous
| single-earner lifestyle long-term.
|
| With dual income you have to pay for daycare (2-3k/month), and
| that's not pre-tax. This lead to less births, requiring more
| immigration. The government used illegal immigration to fill
| the gap, which has put strain on our social services such-as
| schools.
|
| I wonder if we were better off economically with the single
| earning household norm.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| On the other hand, women gained economic (true) freedom.
| Daycare is also $2k per month per child at the higher end,
| for infants, in high cost of living areas. SF/LA/SD/SEA/NYC
| might be a little higher, but the vast majority of the US
| will be at $1.5k/month or lower.
|
| What probably happened is women having opportunity other than
| having kids and being a housewife brought out the costs of
| having kids that women were previously eating on behalf of
| society. Now the costs are more explicitly and society needs
| to pony up to make it more attractive.
| uptownfunk wrote:
| Speaking for myself, and I make a decent wage, all the headlines
| / media have made me re-evaluate how I am spending every penny.
| We no longer eat out as much, spend on flights, try to do more
| things at home, just to be prepared for [more inflation |
| potential lay-off | some other macroeconomic event]
| jeromegv wrote:
| Makes you wonder how much of your behaviour and fears are
| driven by headlines instead of reality. Sure things go up and
| down with the economy, but they also went very up for a lot of
| people (ie: demographic of people on hackernews) during COVID.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/02/23/savings-b...
|
| Flights are expensive because demand is through the roof while
| labor is not available to fulfill the demand. Same for eating
| out.
|
| Not negating that inflation is up within the last year, but did
| you realize how good were the last few years (even before
| COVID) but didn't quite realize as there was no headlines
| telling you that good news?
| uptownfunk wrote:
| Absolutely, it's why for the most part I try not to read the
| news.
| egypturnash wrote:
| My husband looked over my shoulder and made the interesting point
| that it's worth comparing the _population of America_ in 1960 to
| now: 179,323,175 people in 1960 has grown to 331,449,281 in 2020.
| That 's about 180% as many people competing for the same
| entertainment resources.
|
| (source on those numbers: wikipedia's pages for the 1960/2020
| census)
|
| Movies have also kind of stopped being a thing you have to go to
| the local Temple of the Cinematic Arts to see. You can sit at
| home and stream everything on a pretty big screen. So their
| revenue's dropped off a lot, even _without_ the fact that they
| have to give almost the entire price of the ticket to the film
| studio and are trying to survive by marking up the popcorn.
| hotdogrelish wrote:
| Interestingly, in 1960 there were 16 MLB teams that played 154
| regular season games for a total of 1232 games that year,
| compared to 30 MLB teams playing 162 games for 2430 total games
| (almost double!) a year today. I imagine other sports have seen
| a similar trend as well.
| bombcar wrote:
| The Houston Texans are the most recent NFL team, but I feel
| baseball has been more willing to add teams than the NFL has
| (and baseball games happen almost every day, whereas football
| is once a week).
|
| I've always thought you have baseball team _fans_ and
| football _sport_ fans; baseball fans want to watch their
| team, football fans like watching their team but want to
| watch all the teams, too.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| > That's about 180% as many people competing for the same
| entertainment resources.
|
| That makes sense for Disneyland and maybe baseball teams, but
| less so to explain movie theaters, since they're not supply
| constrained in the same way.
| bitwize wrote:
| Parents are just gonna have to improvise: feeder team instead of
| the Yankees, second run theaters, Lake Compounce instead of
| Disneyland. The U.S. population has grown while the number of
| Disneylands and major league teams has remained about the same.
| Plus, the internet and mass media have amplified fandom. Disney
| theme parks used to be thought of as interesting and fun for the
| kids. Today, untold legions of Disney adults make the hajj to
| Mickey Mecca every year. The same with going to your favorite
| team's stadium to watch them play. The result is the venues are
| more crowded, the lines are longer, and due to the laws of supply
| and demand, prices go up.
|
| So Mickey Mecca is out of reach for a typical family outing. But
| it can be planned and saved for as a special event; and more
| local, less famous, less expensive destinations will more than do
| for a typical summer trip.
| alistairSH wrote:
| The crazy thing about the Disney cost... it doesn't include
| airfare or food, both of which can be EXPENSIVE. You could just
| about do a European vacation for a similar daily cost (albeit,
| you'd need to do a week+ to make the airfare cost work out).
| bazzert wrote:
| A beach parking pass for a popular beach near Boston is now $45
| for a weekend day.
| elif wrote:
| They didn't include the costs of COVID testing, masks, or
| probabilistically amortized costs for lost work, paxlovid, etc.
|
| The costs of these activities has truly never been higher.
| jmpman wrote:
| The Arizona Diamondbacks have sucked the fun out of going to the
| ballpark. Even with the cheapest seats in the league, it's
| unpleasant. The cheapest seat gets you a nose bleed look at one
| of the worst teams in baseball. You overlook the rest of the
| empty stadium, while your kid, unable to concentrate on the ants,
| find more pleasure in just about anything. They're not
| cultivating the next generation of fans.
|
| Have a once a week/month/year special, ideally not on a school
| night (if during the school year), where the seats are sold same
| day for $5 - for any seat left in the stadium. Get the kids into
| the crowds, up close, with some excitement. Maybe a $20/seat
| combo that includes your seat, a hotdog, drink and a box of
| cracker jacks.
| missedthecue wrote:
| If you get the cheapest anything, you'll have an imperfect
| experience. But I just pulled up mlb.com and checked prices for
| a random DB game (Friday night game, Aug 5). Outfield seats at
| field level are 25 bucks. Or you can get tickets right by the
| bullpen in foul ball territory for $25.
|
| Not bad for 3+ hours of friday night entertainment.
| bombcar wrote:
| Or this week-
| https://www.mlb.com/dbacks/tickets/specials/kids-free two
| kids free with one adult ticket. Could be a decent deal.
| intrasight wrote:
| Out of reach AND tickets sell out. So what's Disney to do? Why
| would they lower prices?
|
| Ballgames don't generally sell out. And they have several
| available price-points.
|
| Movies have ways to get discounts. And their issue is just
| getting people in since their competition is watching at home.
| Like offices, they need to make the experience very compelling.
| Not so easy.
| rr888 wrote:
| A problem is everyone now goes to the big teams, theme parks,
| national parts etc, the second tier is unloved. Our local
| baseball team closed down because no one turned up, where
| everyone follows MLB. Similarly Yellowstone is overcrowded but
| the campground I used to go to as a kid is empty.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Where are you where you have empty camp grounds?
|
| The local/state ones here in the PNW are booked out months in
| advance nearly everywhere. I suspect bots are being used.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| I have to wonder how much of it is this. My father and
| grandfather spoke of going camping at their favourite regional
| camping spots. When I went to university however, I had similar
| vacation experiences to people from all over the country as we
| all went to Disney and we all went to Vancouver and we all went
| Banff.
|
| The vacation/leisure experience is homogenizing for the middle
| class and decreasingly local.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| Also a bit less exciting to travel a small distance because
| of places getting more similar over time. It used to be you
| could travel a short distance and hit a new accent, and
| slightly different food.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's definitely an aspect - travel including air travel is so
| cheap now that people go to the "big spots" - people likely
| can't even name the closer small areas.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| >But Martinez, a customer service specialist in Los Angeles,
| didn't feel the magic when he saw the price tag.
|
| "Just for one day in the park and one night at the hotel, we were
| looking at over $1k and that didn't even include food," he says.
| "I had to explain to the kids that Mickey was out of Daddy's
| budget."
|
| WTF, if your from LA you just drive there?
|
| >Median household income was $67,521 in 2020, a decrease of 2.9
| percent from the 2019 median of $69,560 (Figure 1 and Table A-1).
| This is the first statistically significant decline in median
| household income since 2011.
|
| https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2021/demo/p60-27...
|
| This article uses a figure of 84k per family. I agree with The
| article's premise, but it just feels a bit sloppy around the
| edges
| judge2020 wrote:
| With Disneyland from Aug 1-2 with 2 adults and 2 kids (age
| 10,12), the cheapest on-site hotel is Disneyland Hotel at
| $607/night. If you then do 1-day 1-park tickets on the 1st,
| that's $600.
|
| The costs here come from trying to stay on-property. If you
| stay off-property (but still close enough to walk) you can book
| a 4-star for less than $300. And the ticket prices are based on
| demand, if you can go during the middle of the week in
| september it's around $400 for a day of Disneyland.
| ac29 wrote:
| The person lives in LA. Granted, traffic sucks in the region
| but its not like an 30-60 minute drive to Anaheim is going to
| be something unusual for an LA resident.
| vel0city wrote:
| The Quality Inn and Suites within walking distance to the
| park is currently $112/night. There are several others
| Katella that are under $200/night. It's not the most
| glamorous of accomodations but if you want to go to
| Disneyland on a budget accomodations doesn't have to be the
| expensive part.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Your statistic is for households. Theirs is for "families", and
| may only include households with children.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| They don't explain that though, usually the terms are used
| interchangeably when you're talking about a macroeconomic
| sense.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| > They don't explain that though
|
| They don't use your term so why would they explain the
| difference?
|
| > usually the terms are used interchangeably when you're
| talking about a macroeconomic sense.
|
| This is the first time I'm looking into this but I'm pretty
| sure you're just making that up. Google shows many sources
| disagreeing with you, most of which cite definitions
| created by the US census bureau. https://www.economy.com/su
| pport/blog/buffet.aspx?did=932EBFA...
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Ahh, thank you. I didn't know this
| EddieDante wrote:
| > WTF, if your from LA you just drive there?
|
| Then you get dinged on gas and parking, and you don't have as
| much time to actually enjoy the park.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Um, you still have to pay for gas and parking even if you
| drive home the next day.
|
| That's half the cost here, it would have still been a good
| article without" oh my God, a family trip to Disneyland is
| over $1,000"
| quartesixte wrote:
| At most thats $25 of gas And $40 of parking for most SoCal
| residents, and thats if you drive a particularly fuel
| inefficient car. At 25-30 mpg, a 60 mile round trip radius
| covers a lot of the LA/OC area for less than $15.
|
| $60 + 2 hours of driving << $600 of Hotel fees. It's not
| even close.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| The more I think about this article the more I find it
| wanting.
|
| I go to various free concerts in my city. You can have a
| lot of fun for free, when I think back my favorite date
| of all time was just me and my first girlfriend holding
| hands at the pier. But if I wanted to write an article
| about how unaffordable dating is, I could say I wanted to
| take her to see Justin Timberlake.
|
| Did you know that Mr. Timberlake has made no effort to
| make his concert to affordable to working-class couples?!
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| It's a clickbait article, not a scientific study.
| quartesixte wrote:
| I think the point is that what used to be cultural
| staples of American Society for _families_ have now
| become more expensive. Going to free concerts as a young
| couple (along with other cheap dates) is actually also
| somewhat expected and if the pop culture references and
| stories from Boomers /GenXer are true, also a staple of
| American Society.
|
| That being said, going to Disneyland wasn't a frequent
| trip kind of thing to most Americans anyways, and the
| Disneyland of the 60s and 70s is downright unrecognizable
| at times (chainlink fences at the park entrance). I think
| the article could have done without the Disneyland
| reference.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| No reason you can't just take your whole family to the
| beach.
|
| It's like complaining Steven King novels cost too much,
| thousands upon thousands of novels are free, you can
| always read those while you save up money
| EddieDante wrote:
| Or you could get a library card.
| quartesixte wrote:
| Having fun, isn't hard, when you got a library card!
| bombcar wrote:
| Disneyland is open 8 AM to midnight, and you'd still have to
| drive to the hotel either way. Parking is $30 or so even when
| parking at the closest options, but there are many other
| parking areas and shuttles available.
|
| What I suspect is happening is that _before_ when things were
| cheaper it wasn 't "much more" to get a hotel bundle deal,
| and made it simpler (hotel included parking, after midnight
| no drive home, just crash at the hotel and check out next
| day, or hit the other park). But as costs rise, you can't
| necessarily do what you did the last time, and need to modify
| your plan of attack. For example, if the kids are older,
| you'd want to consider Magic Mountain, some miles north of
| LA, but with cheaper (or free if you do some tricks) parking
| and a annual pass for $200 (buy two get one free).
| [deleted]
| cortesoft wrote:
| For something like Disneyland, the total annual attendance is way
| higher today than it was in the 60s, so demand is clearly still
| there and they are increasing their capacity. It isn't like they
| have a ton of excess capacity that they are pricing out of
| attending.
|
| Imagine Disneyland simply cut prices by 50% tomorrow. Now,
| instead of Disneyland being out of reach because it is too
| expensive, it would be out of reach because all the tickets were
| sold out. I would rather the cost of something increase than make
| it impossible to get at all.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's also nice (in a way) because they're much more cognizant
| of this, and if you are willing to flex you can get in much
| cheaper than a normal "high time face-value" price.
|
| Last time I went we brought 12 people for about a grand.
| zaptrem wrote:
| Seems like they should just build more Disneylands.
| bombcar wrote:
| I feel Disney is more gun-shy than they should be with new
| parks, they could easily support a midwest Disneyland and
| probably a Texas one, too.
|
| As it is the midwest has a rollercoaster in a giant mall.
| tonmoy wrote:
| Isn't this all driven by supply and demand? If people really were
| making less and willing to pay less for these activities,
| wouldn't the companies automatically start cutting costs, make
| the products inferior and lower prices? Doesn't this analysis
| only tell us that people today are more willing to (or able to)
| spend more compared to their income (maybe people save less or
| spend less taking care of their elderly or something)
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Probably not, especially when dealing with families. Notice how
| the tickets are relatively cheap and usually have gone up the
| least? You get marketed the cost of the ticket, which might
| look reasonable, but then the cost of add-ons, like beer,
| parking, etc., are hidden from you. That's where the biggest
| increases are.
|
| You, as an adult might have some foresight and self control to
| think, _OK, I 'm going to eat before I get there and I'll buy
| cheap merch at the store after the fact if I had a really good
| time_, but they know that you probably won't say no to your
| kids who want a popcorn, a soda and to get the limited edition
| hat, all at outrageous markups...
| scottLobster wrote:
| Or the industries are moving up-market. You have to go where
| the money is, and as the years go by there's less and less of
| it in the traditional "middle class".
|
| I also wonder if easy access to credit pays a roll. Credit
| cards were simply harder to get back in the day (partially tied
| to interest rates), which means a lot more enforced savings.
| Nowadays even someone with marginal credit can get a $1000
| limit, blow out the card and pay 20+%/month on a baseball game
| they couldn't afford in the first place. But the ball park/team
| won't care, they got their money.
| f6v wrote:
| Or maybe there's unequal wealth distribution. Someone might be
| willing to pay but can't make that much. One example is
| software engineer vs mailman.
| judge2020 wrote:
| They would, the point of this article is that the upwards
| pricing without upwards wages means more and more people can't
| afford the vacations. Unless they just build in more capacity
| (which they do where they can[0-2], although DisneyLand is
| quite constrained in terms of real estate), the demand is
| increasing much faster than that capacity and thus the prices
| are increasing to match what the market will bear.
|
| 0: https://insidethemagic.net/2012/06/double-dumbo-debuts-at-
| th...
|
| 1: https://thedisneyblog.com/2015/03/06/epcots-soarin-to-add-
| th...
|
| 2: https://www.themeparkinsider.com/flume/201605/5083/
| russdpale wrote:
| no point in catering to the poors in a world of haves and have
| nots. That is what America is now.
| mgas wrote:
| My personal take on this is that the idea of adjusting for
| inflation over time based on macroeconomic rates of inflation is
| useless (apart from showing that even though we make more money
| now, we can afford less). National inflation does not correlate
| with cost of living on a 1:1 scale.
|
| The lesson is similar to the adage "the stock market is not the
| economy". Typical things that are presented to us as the
| proverbial market forces (jobs creation, stock market indices,
| currency valuations, national debt) are more often used as
| excuses by price-setters to increase costs for consumers, whether
| or not manufacturers and service providers (at any level)
| actually incur increased costs.
|
| We as consumers are typically blind to this, and just accept that
| things get more expensive. Remember the oil issues in the early
| 2000s after the Deep Horizon leak and Hurricane Katrina? Gas
| prices went from ~$1/gal to over $3/gal for a while, then settled
| back in at around $2.50. And everyone was relieved and just ate
| that crap because they could finally fill up their suburban tanks
| without waiting in line. It's going to happen again here soon,
| when gas comes back down to around ~$4/gal (or $5.50 in CA).
|
| Also, in what world does a stadium beer at a Padres game cost $5?
| Even a disgusting Bud Lite will run you north of $10. The reality
| of MLB is that you can probably get tickets for next to nothing,
| not need to pay to park (if your stadium is in an urban area and
| you are willing to walk a bit), but you will absolutely get
| gouged on food and drink. The movie theater model is in full
| effect.
| JamesSwift wrote:
| The Disney calculations dont take into account fastpass pricing,
| which is the new favorite gouge of theme parks these days. I'm
| not sure if capacity limits were loosened over time or what, but
| its almost a necessity to get a fastpass to enjoy your (very
| expensive) day at the parks these days. It used to be that only a
| couple of the popular rides would be a long wait, but its almost
| all of them any more.
| pmarreck wrote:
| All of these things have a fixed supply _, while the demand for
| them has only increased; this is why costs have increased. US
| population alone has at least doubled since then.
|
| _ the one exception possibly being the theater experience, since
| you can build more theaters, but real estate has also gone up
| (due, again, to fixed supply and increasing demand) and that cost
| is passed along to the consumer, so the effect is the same. Plus,
| pandemic losses need to be recoup'd, etc.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| Has demand actually increased, or has it been bought out by
| people with more money than your average person?
|
| I feel like this point is often missed. There's a fair amount
| of Disney superfans for example that have the wealth and
| ability to make frequent and often trips to Disneyland. If you
| have enough of those wealthy individuals, they can push out
| everyone else. In this scenario the price of the attraction(s)
| is almost irrelevant and incentivizes Disney to only cater to a
| very specific and wealthy crowd.
|
| Real estate functions the same way as land is consolidated
| under wealthy individuals. These individuals then make a lot of
| their money by actively harming people's ability to rent or own
| property (though things like AirBnB) and then repeat the cycle.
|
| The problem isn't fixed supply/demand, it's the consolidation
| of wealth and power in fewer individuals that then
| disproportinately affect the dynamics.
| dougmwne wrote:
| In this thread: rich people explain why poor people have nothing
| to complain about.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Supply vs Demand can't be escaped.
| jeromegv wrote:
| Good old days when poor people were going to Disneyland, had
| access to a mortgage and were not discriminated through red-
| zoning.
|
| Ah the good old days.
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| Disneyland has 3 times more visitors now than before, in large
| part because of the globalization. Even at current prices, ride
| queues are unbearable.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Isn't this just "Baumol's cost disease"? All of these are
| services and services have had their price go up faster than
| inflation (while goods have had their problems go up slower).
| It's kind of meaningless because money is fungible, so if
| Disneyland costs 2x what it did in 1960 (in real terms but your
| clothes cost 1/2 as much then you could be saving money overall.
| In fact that's why they have CPI in the first place!
| syrrim wrote:
| >But when it comes to traditional family outings, the purchasing
| power of that income has declined
|
| There's an obvious way to dispute this claim: at the time, these
| were not traditional family outings. They were modern family
| outings, and would have been alternatives to what were considered
| traditional family outings back then. As they became traditional,
| markets found a way to cash in on their status in that regard by
| raising prices. Cheaper alternatives also arose, but people who
| want the "real" experience typically won't settle for the cheap
| version. Thus, the price increases.
| mkl95 wrote:
| > Just for one day in the park and one night at the hotel, we
| were looking at over $1k and that didn't even include food
|
| That's doesn't look like a competitive tag anywhere on Earth. Do
| you REALLY have to take your kids to Disneyland though? There are
| tons of significantly entertaining, cheaper things you can do.
| greedo wrote:
| I remember as a young man in San Diego, being able to go see a
| day game or doubleheader. It wasn't cheap if you wanted good
| seats, but you could often find someone scalping their tickets
| for a decent price. Once, in 1984 I was able to get a pair in the
| first row right off first base. The memory still sticks with me
| today. Jack Murphy Stadium didn't charge for parking, so it was
| just gas, tickets and beer/hotdogs. I think the day cost me and
| my buddy like $30 each in 1984, and seeing Tony Gwynn was
| priceless. According to the Internet, that's about $85 in today's
| simoleons. Now these were like the best seats in the house and I
| got lucky with the scalper.
| bombcar wrote:
| Prices weren't even that bad once they moved to Petco, as long
| as you were willing to roll up on the Trolley for a weekday
| game.
| bredren wrote:
| I wonder how much of this difference is due to rampant
| compensation inequalities of the 1960s.
|
| Where the services supply chains that make these experiences
| happen should have cost a lot more than they did.
| collegeburner wrote:
| not just for families this makes it real hard to date as a
| 20something. all the stuff girls expect got way more expensive.
| i'm lucky i get paid well but not everybody got it this easy. and
| tbh i can't blame ppl who don't want to spend all this money on
| dating.
| f6v wrote:
| > all the stuff girls expect
|
| The fact that someone is expecting someone else to be paying
| for dates in 2022 is just crazy.
| bombcar wrote:
| I feel many things people call "dates" are very ...
| transactional these days. :(
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| This is just a self-limiting belief. Statements like " all the
| stuff girls expect" should be a red flag to you. Frankly, I
| hear this uttered by guys who are only making statements about
| how they think dating is like since they aren't actually doing
| much dating.
|
| Hint: Try branching out beyond dinner dates, anyways. There are
| cheap/free dates that are far more interesting, and you filter
| for cool women that want to do those things.
|
| "Wanna go to an expensive dinner?" isn't what women want in
| 2022 either. It's boring.
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