alt Hacker NewsBecause while the $50 deal exists then everyone has the right to fight for it (I would even argue that it's rational!). I don’t see how that’s incompatible with wishing the $50 deal didn’t exist in the first place. Pricing that rewards whoever spends the most time searching is a bad system, and agents are a fair fix because they make that local price optima findable for everyone.
I think pricing that rewards searching is actually very fair and good. You give customers choice between money and effort - rich people will book the first flight and pay more, subsidized poorer people.
If agents make finding cheaper tickets trivial and the default, customers lose that choice.