Why your flight costs so much now
Great for price discrimination. Taylor reframes 'stupid' airline websites as clever machines for working out willingness to pay, walking through third-degree discrimination (child, off-peak, senior discounts) and then the self-selecting fare bundles (Basic, Regular, Plus, Flexi Plus) that get travellers to sort themselves by how much they will pay. The unbundling of bags, seats and breakfast, and the prospect of AI-driven individual pricing, extend it nicely towards evaluatio
The scam of 'sensible' spending
A sharp piece on how 'sensible' framing switches off our scrutiny. Taylor covers extended warranties on cheap goods (often more profitable for the retailer than the product itself) and the wave of 'high protein' versions of foods that were already protein-rich. The through-line is that labelling a purchase cautious or virtuous stops us questioning whether it is actually good value. Useful for information failure and asymmetric information, and for behavioural ideas about fram
When bad taste becomes a status symbol
Christmas jumpers and a £1,300 'pub carpet' Guinness sweater anchor this look at 'ironic consumption' and Veblen goods. Taylor traces how Christmas jumpers went from unfashionable to unavoidable, then uses the JW Anderson x Guinness range to show how a high price is the point: people buy because the cost signals status. The in-group and out-group idea (the same look means different things to different buyers) adds a nice layer on signalling and market segmentation. It covers