After reading their SEC filing I would push back on that slightly.
I think the main reason Ryanair is so cheap is that they get insanely good deals with the airports because they bring so much business to the region. Ie Alicante, a secondary airport, is somewhat tourist-dependent.
Ryanair makes a deal with the municipally-owned airport and says hey, we're going to bring thousands of Brits and Germans to you (with full wallets). The municipality gives a good deal in return.
There's also the 1.5x revenue multiplier from ancillary revenue.
Finally, they only own one type of airplane. Makes the maintenance etc easier.
>Those incidentals would not increase your fare 5-8 times
Oh I see what you're saying. What I'm saying is, what's the alternative? Another more expensive airline whose online check-in takes 5min instead of 10min? I'm contending that even with the dark patterns, my downside is only 1.5x cost, which is still far, far below a non-budget airline.
>nor can the price difference to US be the base for your cost savings
Yeah I agree it's not perfect — but as someone who used to live in the US it's a base for me
About 1/3 of their revenue is ancillary (the dark patterns are there to cause ancillary revenue).
I just flew from Bournemouth to Alicante on Ryanair for £50. A similar flight in the US (DC to Miami, for example) would be easily 5x that, possibly 7-8x. The dark patterns took me about 10min to click through. Doing the math, that means my time would have to be worth $1500/hr which is higher than the take-home (not billable) of senior partners at law firms.
Ryanair has severely improved my life, especially for my fellow sun-deprived Northern Europeans.
I have no idea how people are burning $2k. I pay $100/mo and it's built an absolute crap ton of stuff for me. And my co-founder uses it 24/7 as well. Maybe we spend too much time actually reading the code (risk or benefit? you decide). Or maybe I'm in the "massively subsidized" camp and the investors are about to go for our jugular. But $2k for a single project is several orders of magnitude more than I am currently paying.
I don't understand the pessimism here. You never know the use cases for quickly and automatically rotating domains. There have always been bots, spammers and scammers. I'm interested to see what people build with this.
It's neither capitalist nor socialist. If it were fully socialist you would have long wait lists but it would be free and there would be one payer. It is like this for Medicare and Medicaid which I've heard are a fantastic UX. But this is only the case for about half of Americans (the ones who don't pay for it).
On the other side, if it were fully capitalist you would be able to see the price and walk away if you didn't like it. This is what makes capitalism work. Your margin is my opportunity. Instead, the upper middle class, who pays for everything already, and is unable to use Medicaid, is forced to use a certain "network" of providers and never, ever sees the price upfront. This is the cornerstone of capitalism. Does the buyer like the price? If so, transact. It's completely not there. Instead, it's actively discouraged and banned, and the price is maximized post-hoc by the same entities who negotiate directly with the employee's employer. Ie, a quantitative shakedown.
He's an idiot. He pulled off one of the most incredible stunts I've ever seen. Not only does was he able to find and extract the gold over a mile down, which is incredible, he was also able to rally over 100 investors and raise capital. Ironically this is basically how capital markets originated, from shipping ventures not unlike this one.
He should have given the investors their money, taken his performance fee, and not spend up to half of his remaining lifespan (and probably around 3/4 of his remaining health span).
On the other hand, if he has grandkids and he manages to give them say 100mm instead of 20mm, he may feel it was worth it genetically.
What I do now is I make an MVP with the AI, get it working. And then tear it all down and start over again, but go a little slower. Maybe tear down again and then go even more slowly. Until I get to the point where I'm looking at everything the AI does and every line of code goes through me.
derek at domain of the company I founded