Christopher Elliott

I'm not pointing this out to be pedantic, but because I think it's interesting: it was actually not by law that merchants were not allowed to offer different prices for cash vs. credit card purchase, it was by contract.

That is to say, in the merchant agreement required to accept credit cards, merchants promised to the credit card companies that they would not charge users of credit cards more than cash payers.

As another poster points out, this anti-competitive bullshit was made illegal by law circa 2012.

These kinds of coercive/collusive agreements among a cartel of providers of a particular type of service worry me deeply, especially when a previously-luxury service (e.g., credit cards) becomes semi-necessary infrastructure for operating in the modern world. For more on this type of problem, I encourage you to read about the unbanked [0] and the challenges they face.

Despite how much better they make my life, I also look at the success of Uber, Lyft, AirBnB, and other platforms with worry, precisely because they are in many cases creating semi-necessary infrastructure in the private domain. Individuals can already be banned from Uber [1] and Lyft (and Google [1], etc.) without any legal recourse, which also means by mistake because you are treated as guilty until you can prove your innocence, and innocence is usually impossible to prove.

Here's one (hypothetical and admittedly unlikely) future I worry about: autonomous cars rule the world, 99% owned by four companies…

No it's not 100% false, it's about 70% correct, refunds are in (expiring, non-transferable) flight credits not money-back. The preceding poster said "your money back" not "flight credits".

Flight credits expire (with US carriers, typically in 12 months, sometimes within only 3 months (Spirit), with European carriers, sometimes up to 3 years), and cannot be transferred to any other passenger [0], unlike even airmiles; and using them with partner airlines can be restricted; many passengers are unaware of much of that and airlines do not point it out, and rely on the fact that passengers may not realize till the credit has expired.

(In 7/2022, Southwest did uniquely eliminate expiration on flight credits unexpired from July 28, 2022 onward.)

Just because an airline only initially offers (restricted, expiring) travel credits, doesn't mean much; in some cases [1] passengers may be entitled to an actual money-back refund: (a) canceled flight b) passenger has documented medical circumstance c) cancellations due to Covid d) possibly other circumstance).
One excellent advocacy resource is [2] Elliott.org 12/2022: "The complete guide to using your airline flight credit now".
EU regulations are more pro-passenger than USDOT.

Southwest in 3/2022 unveiled its long-awaited new fare category "Wanna Get Away Plus" whose key perk is the ability to transfer flight credits, which Southwest calls travel funds (which sounds like intentionally misleading language, but anyway). But again, SW…

Arrington takes Steven Frischling to task for "caving." Yet Frischling's own attorney advised him that he had no legal basis for hiding his source.

I imagine that Arrington's own attorney would advise him essentially the same way. I assume that Arrington and his company would comply with all other types of subpoenas; assuming similar legal advice in a similar situation it's hard to see why he would refuse to comply with this particular type of subpoena.

Bloggers may look like journalists to many of us, and many bloggers may feel like journalists, but at least at present, as I understand it, bloggers are not journalists in the eyes of the court. Bloggers are merely average Joes with no special status. That should probably change, but we're far from there yet.

Essentially, Arrington is blaming the victim. I suppose Frischling should have worn a more modest constitutional dress if he didn't want to be raped by the TSA. And yes, I consider threatening someone with the loss of their job to be rape-like, and certainly far outside the bounds of professional law enforcement conduct.

By the way, Chris Elliot, the other threatened blogger, wrote a very classy thank you to all the people who helped him through the episode. He has nothing but good words for Steven Frischling, and for the professional conduct of the DHS agent who served the subpoena.

http://www.elliott.org/blog/to-the-team-of-friends-allies-and-advisers-who-helped-make-the-subpoena-go-away/

> How "might" it be "far better" to the public at large for airlines to serve fewer people at a higher cost?

For the same kinds of reasons it's better for the post office to serve people in remote areas at higher cost as opposed to leaving them without service and cut off. The same reasons why it's better for more Americans to have access to broadband, not just the Americans who live in the areas that would make ISPs the most profit. It can be worth it to spend more money when it means providing access to important services to more Americans vs a select few.

> If they did as you suggest, they'd be demonstrably and measurably delivering FAR less to the public while charging even more money.

Which is exactly the case. They ARE delivering less. Less access by only providing service to the locations which give them the most profit. Less leg room so that they can cram more people into every flight. Less service by cutting staff. Giving passengers fewer options/less choice. Allowing less baggage. Flights are increasingly canceled and delayed. Customer satisfaction gets lower and lower all the time. They are giving us less.

They are also charging more and more. Airline tickets are skyrocketing, outpacing inflation. Even as the service airlines provide keeps getting worse and worse, the prices keep getting higher, and higher but there are also the endless bullshit fees for everything they can think of…

Disclaimer: I am not a guy who hate Google or have anything against Google+ and I personally am okay with Google showing me on search result, but on the case of real name policy I am a nay-sayer.

Google, Facebook need to stop this real name policy or ease it. Having real name real identity, a page that people can view as they search on Google is great for some people. If you are celebrity or some famous programmer or mathematician, you probably don't mind. And usually these people get official "verification" if they are truly famous people. You see that a lot on Twitter and Facebook.

Sometimes I can careless about people's real name and instead I pay more attention to their pseudo identity, their username in this case. It's a choice and we should be more willing to make this real name policy flexible.

I still use G+ for friend's communication but other than that it has no use for me. I don't get 10000 followers like Linus does so why should I care about having a real name?

If Gmail is happy with James Bond why can't I use James Bond (I am just making it up)?

http://elliott.org/problem-solved/google-plus-says-my-name-is-not-allowed-now-what/

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/facebooks-forgotten-rule-fake-names-allowed/story?id=15509496

Why would anyone need to provide some documentation to show that he or she is who he or she claims to be?

Paypal has done this multiple times, here are some incidents.

https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/My-Account/Permanent-BAN-limited-account/td-p/1489460

https://medium.com/@puntofisso/paypal-closed-my-account-with-no-explanation-it-could-happen-to-you-6ff0ba4ea95f

https://www.elliott.org/blog/banned-from-palpal-account-limitations/

https://www.success.grownupgeek.com/index.php/2008/04/05/paypal-limited-access/comment-page-3/

Completely relying on any third party is a bad idea. We should consider the risks when we signup to any service. Around this month we have seen multiple companies banning accounts without giving valid reasons MailChimp, Patreon, Slack(They had a reason but they didn't notify the users earlier, however they appologized later)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18754860

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18715866

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18724107