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.
> 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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
Nah, I moved out to NC from SoCal last year. Harris Lake is the place I'm talking about, cools down Shearon Harris nuclear plant. Looks like thats up around Sacramento? My cousin recently moved to Modesto from PA so I'll recommend it to him.
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.
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).
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.
I recently visited the aquarium (2019 - right before Covid). While the immediate area around the aquarium felt safe, the sketchiness factor seemed to increase very quickly as you went further away.
The last time I visited the aquarium was in the 1980s with my dad. I had very fond memories of both the aquarium and riding those small white electric boat things in the harbor. I didn't feel unsafe at all, but then again I was an elementary school kid so what would I have known back then?
Then again, back then I distinctly felt unsafe going into Manhattan in NYC, and recall my dad commuted into the city with a steel baton and pepper spray in his briefcase for self defense.
Heh, well, if you went north (away from the water) you would have hit "The Block," a collection of strip clubs the city allows, in its infinite wisdom, to persist two blocks north of the Aquarium. But it de-sketches if you keep going!
The Harbor these days is just empty compared to the '90s, which certainly makes it feel sketchier. As I said, I don't think it's that dangerous, but I wouldn't say it's a nice place to be, especially at night (side note: "The Block" is dangerous at night), and when friends visit I take them to different neighborhoods for dinner / drinks.
> The Harbor these days is just empty compared to the '90s, which certainly makes it feel sketchier. As I said, I don't think it's that dangerous
Just adding the link here because I lived in Baltimore and think it's irresponsible that so many Baltimore residents try to hand-wave away how dystopian Baltimore really is. It absolutely is a dangerous place and visitors should be extremely careful if they visit the city. It was already at over 150 murders in less than half a year this past June.
> The violence has not let up with almost 160 murders in the city so far this year.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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).
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
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.)
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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!"
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> People that simultaneously complain about Disneylands price and the crowds are delusional.
perhaps in a simplified model of the world in which the only way of allocating limited resources is via a pure free market, and we assume that there's no way to satiate more demand
just off the top of my head for the latter: an online pre-sign-up and scheduling system with phones or wireless wristbands that assigns you times for your preferred rides, should help level demand and avoid bottlenecks, and thus increase throughput, and thus increase turnover, and thus increase daily attendance capacity
essentially MRP but the people are the materials and the rides are the workstations
Uh, so... That's basically Disney World right now. You must reserve your visit to the park, and there's a paid system (Genie+) to compete for ride times without waiting in line.
And there's a really good video someone did on the evolution and systems engineering behind the Genie+ / FastPass system:
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
Frankly it has nothing to do with “being a kid”. There is a shit-ton for adults with a keen eye:
Impeccably landscaped grounds. Heavily themed environments (not even the trash cans are left unthemed). Care and thought put into the immersive experience, sight lines, smell, music, etc. Christ some of the live musicians (Dixieland, barbershop, the Dapper Dans, etc) are worth it on their own. Its a fantastic place to just walk around (assuming not hot and crowded) and devour the sensory experience.
Not for the cynical of course. You have to just give in and let it all in.
If you’re the type to just trounce through an area without taking in the details that sit before you, it’s not the place for you. If you’re the type to admire the street lamps, flowers, insanely well-maintained painted woodwork, etc it’s the place for you.
Because adults are large children and experiences like Disney are way better when you have adult money, no parents to keep you in line, and no kids to be responsible for.
Like damn, people in this thread are acting like adults can’t like Star Wars and Frozen. Do you feel the same way about music festivals? Seeing your favorite bands and buying merch.
The prevailing line in this thread is that it’s seemingly childish, immature, #cringe to genuinely like and be excited for things.
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.
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.
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.
>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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Ah yes, corporate-sponsored, mandated happiness with childrens characters smoothed over for maximum appeal/profit. The perfect salve for these troubled times
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).
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" :)
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.
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.
Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky is an unknown treasure outside of the state (unless you're a climber). The Red River Gorge has beautiful vistas, old growth hemlock stands, and really cool rock formations. And speaking of entertainment/travel/lodging inflation, primitive and developed camping are still cheap in the area.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
A 1985 Honda Civic retailed at $7,295, or about $20,000 today. It was a 94 inch wheelbase hatchback with 60hp. A Kia Rio is similar today—a high quality Asian-built alternative brand—and starts at under $17,000. It’s got a 101 inch wheelbase and 120 horsepower.
That’s true today. But in 1985 Honda was an import brand competing on price. Today it’s much more of a premium brand offering higher quality and reliability.
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)
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.
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.
I went to a Vancouver Canucks game once. The concessions prices were still outrageous, but they were in Canadian dollars and after the exchange rate, they were perfectly reasonable.
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, ...)
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.
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).
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.
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.
You miss a lot with TV angles, depending on the sport. Like in hockey, you basically miss almost all the substitutions since they happen in real time away from the action.
NFL is a lot worse than MLB or NBA just because 8 home games is way too few compared to 81 or even 41. Depending on how shitty your home team is, MLB can be a huge bargain. Buy some cheap seats at a Mariners game if you’re ever in Seattle.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
> 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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
Anecdotally, this comment resonates. It feels like a perpetual game of "how badly can we abuse people for profit." How long can we sell it before the cancer class actions start? How terrible can food be if we make it cheap enough? How expensive can we make mediocre food when we own all the options? If we abuse employees and customers simultaneously could we make even more? How long can we coast on the trust built by our old quality? It's amazing how many places feel like their premium offerings are what we used to get with the standard price. Want to be treated like a person? Are you a gold member?
Why would you guess MBAs, and not the thousands of technologists devoting their career to adtech, pricing optimization, A/B testing, data science, etc?
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.
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.
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".
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".
This comment is "grasping at straws" of the highest order. At least make a compelling argument grounded in reality.
Bob Iger was Disney CEO for 15 years, during which he bought Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm, opened parks in Hong Kong and Shanghai, and set the stage for Disney+. The company's valuation increased better than 5x.
Michael Rapino ran Live Nation and merged with Ticketmaster in 2010, becoming CEO of the new Live Nation Entertainment, and depending on your choice of start date, has 5x to 10x'ed the company's valuation. It has bought multiple event management companies, created artist management divisions, and owns and operate concert venues across the U.S. and internationally.
Jerry Jones bought the Dallas Cowboys in 1989 for about $140 million. Now, it is the most valuable NFL franchise, at about $5.5 billion -- a 40x increase. He built AT&T Stadium, moved the team HQ and practice facility to become the centerpiece of a massive real-estate development "The Star," and has been a pioneer and leader among NFL owners in boosting revenues from television contracts and other external sources.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> "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)
> 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
>> 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
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.
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.
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.
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
> 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"
Errr soooo yeah the context is how today’s American family outings compares to American family outings of decades past…
So you’re right the wording was bad, i wasn’t the one that said “not Americans” but I think that person was confused why so many are making flat out incorrect comments like they don’t know anything about America.
My comments was trying to say, “no even multigenerational Americans often don’t know what their grandparents generation was like.”
In this context of comparing American vacations across time periods, the group you’re talking about, Recent immigrants, I would hope aren’t commenting because very few would have researched the topic of American vacations from 1920 to 1980.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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
> 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.
I don't see why your point isn't taken more seriously. Perhaps it's the audience of highly compensated tech employees and startup workers, some of whom follow the philosophy of libertarians and Paul Graham.
I posted this comment on the discussion forum of a private equity firm that specializes in building companies that use technology to commoditize labor and depress wages.
His points aren’t taken seriously because they’re confused . Wage theft is a meaningful concept. It means not being paid for work you did in an hourly role because it was done off the clock. It does not mean getting paid less than some internet commenter thinks people should be paid.
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.
I know it's a cliché 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I feel like so many businesses are just focusing on the whales without realizing that part of what made them successful before was that everyone could've been a "Whale".
Like, it seems so much more enviable to have 1000 regular "fish" that all pay a moderate amount than to try and squeeze every dollar out of 1 whale. But instead our economy is so terribly skewed that we try and give a cheap option to the "minnows" while trying to make a "luxury experience" for a handful of "whales".
It doesn't serve anyone really, but we're so stuck in this trickle-down mindset that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
>"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).
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.
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).
The upper middle class were the ones well-off enough to have flown in the 60s/70s but still price-sensitive enough to penny-pinch themselves into misery after deregulation.
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.
Price discrimination is the name of the game in today's world, and is taught in every economics class.
At some point, we need to ask folk to price goods for a meaningful cost, not the maximum allowable, for better access and a more open market. Money cannot be the only measurement of a meaningful marketplace.
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.
> 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?
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's completely understandable that hotdogs are an integral part of the baseball game experience, the same way that getting popcorn at a movie theater is part of the experience.
But that's not really how it was phrased and it's ridiculous to think that anyone, even children as young as 5 or 6, should have any issue with not having food available for 3-4 hours.
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/39fpjlmmvui31.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?
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.
You're right, this is unreasonable. Please teach a class to 5-year-olds on intermittent fasting and why they should learn to do it to properly enjoy a sportsball game.
It's only 3hrs without food if you eat immediately before and after the game. Which, when you're trying to corral small children, means that there is likely time on either side of it.
But also, WTF, If you eat 3 meals a day you go 5h20m on a 16h day without food. And 56% of that is unreasonable for a child to feel hungry during? You're a special kind of inconsiderate at the very least with this comment. In actuality your comment mostly reads as malicious and bad.
It's super common to have lunch at 12 and dinner at 8 without any food in-between. 3 hours without food is completely normal. Actually believing that you can't have fun for 3 hours because food isn't available (or too expensive) is weird. Even for 5 year olds.
Of course you still need something to drink during that time.
Huh, super common. What's your source for that info? Most of the 5-YO I know go to sleep at 8, so that doesn't pass the smell test for me. Where in the world are you that the average dinner time is 8pm?
Also, I don't think anyone is saying you can't do it, just that most people doing it wouldn't consider it "fun" or "an enjoying evening out" if they have a 5-YO who is screaming cause they're hungry.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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”.
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)!
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.
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.
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.
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]
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?
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.
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
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).
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!
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.
> 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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
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.
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.
>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.
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.
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.
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.
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/support/blog/buffet.aspx?did=932EBFA...
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.
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?!
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.
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).
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.
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.
MK is smaller because it was designed to be the cherry on top for EPCOT when it was a city. Walt wanted a city but the board wanted a theme park, so he put a watered down one at the top of the property. Then when he died the city was cancelled and the park’s design wasn’t changed.
It did end up helping to encourage park hopping, you’re right, but that wasn’t the original idea. Another site would be an interesting idea (especially if Disney loses the protections they have in Florida, making a 5th gate even harder to build), although I’d rather they just fix EPCOT :/
>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...
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!)
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, ...)
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.)
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
>Health and safety bureaucrats arguably prevent affordable leisure activities
I've seen 100+ places in America that rent ATV's and about 4 that rent dirtbikes. I haven't fully investigated why, but I have to imagine it's some type of liability/lawsuit situation.
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)
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I looked into this when I saw how impossible it is to get a camp site. In California you can't have camp fires which is a downside. Also the logistics weren't obvious. How do I even find a spot, where can I leave my car, what can I bring.
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.
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.
> 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.)
> 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Everyone is comparing about Disney, and I find that $1000 figure low - I honestly think you can find better value, or could, when you could travel to Japan or Hong Kong and do Disney there.
Growing up around Disney World, and heading back there nowadays, it is a shame, and it's not the park or the employees but the people and the absolute density. It is a fully mature commercialized money extraction machine, not that the ones in Japan or HK aren't - but I've managed to snag tickets round trip to HK and JP that were $600'ish, hotel accommodation is average at $50 a night for 5 star in both places but not in actual disney accomodations, there's public transit/rail so easy to get around and food costs were a fraction, we're talking $15 a day, with entry tickets at $40-60.
Of course Tokyo Disney Sea. Tokyo Disney Land and Hong Kong Disneyland aren't for everyone, but I wouldn't go near the one in Orlando ever again - that was a treat growing up and each subsequent time was an experience that was hell, not to mention International Drive in Orlando, needing a car and the whole sake of it. It's really ironic - Orlando is built around cars, while JP/HK you need nothing but to show up on your two feet.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
I think one problem is Americans aren’t the target market for major attractions and events as much as international tourists and of course high income Americans. The real whales have the sky boxes or rent out the whole venue.
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.
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.
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.
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.
People are scoffing at this but cutting out most of the dating pool because they don’t want to do cheap activities on dates is not easy advice to follow.
Appreciating more substance is something people mature into. Over the course of years, not the length of an romcom. Anyone already mature enough in their 20s is likely take.
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.
- 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.
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.
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.
>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.
This is probably true, think of when more rural areas had thriving popluations. They aren't near a stadium or amusement park, a family's social life involved their church and "family outings" were organized by church groups. Populations grew around urban areas which have tons of churches in the US but also the opportunity to interact with many more types of people and an explosion of new types of activities.
I think Big Outing also made sure sitcom characters went to major league sports stadiums and amusement parks which people aspire to attain.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
"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. "
Best way to do that is to create, participate and or support the non industrialized entertainment, not crying in the clouds.
That are so many free/cheap sports to watch, more than often very locally, why sticking to the high dollar working class milking stuff? There are so many cheap yet interesting cultural stuff happening, why going to the big theaters to watch blockbusters? There are so much stuff to do in the woods, national parks, lakes, rivers, why going to entertainment parks when you could be doing fun stuff outside with a lot less money?
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!
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.
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...
> 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.
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]
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.
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?
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.
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).
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Vehicle users don't give a damn about the price of crude oil except to the extent it makes the fuels they use like Diesel more expensive. Our biggest problem is refinery capacity, it's down 1 million barrels per day or 5% from before COVID which has now abated causing demand to go up. Distillate imports from Russia which were making up part of the gap have been embargoed because of the invasion. Worldwide refinery capacity is said to be down 3 million barrels per day.
Natural gas prices were getting bad due to bad policies in China, Europe and the US before the invasion, and CF Industries as one example shut down both of its nitrogen fixing plants in the U.K. last year (the government there arranged for one to reopen so the byproduct of CO2 would be available for other food industry uses).
For that matter, 10 years ago is a curious beginning point to choose because another anti-fossil fuel President was in office at the time. Rhetoric is not going to fill empty bellies in the coming months or make my breakfasts cheaper.
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.
> 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.
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.
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?
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
>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.
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.
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.
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.