I read in a local newspaper about a bordello in Germany, where prostitution is legal, that charges customers a fixed fee: a bit over 100 euros ($140) for an evening of drinks, food, and entertainment.
This kind of pricing is common to amusement parks (Disneyland, for example), ski lifts, all-you-can-eat restaurants, and elsewhere. It is a way the firm can minimize the transactions costs of pricing each service and also, if the fixed price is set properly, extract the entire consumer surplus.
With such a pricing scheme, however, the customers who choose to pay the fixed fee will differ from those who buy the product if each item is priced separately. Visitors to Disneyland will disproportionately be those who will consume a lot of rides, skiers will be those who want to make a lot of runs, and bigger eaters will visit all-you-can-eat restaurants (for example, I never go to them because they’re a bad deal for me).
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Anybody remember back when disneyland was pay to get in and a book of tickets for the rides “e-rides, anybody?”
Mom & Dad would hand their tickets to the kids and watch from the side. The kids were usually tired before all the tickets were used so the extras made it home as souvenirs. Less folks actually on the rides, but the folks didn’t have to pay out unneeeded big bucks to watch their kids have fun.
Then they went to no ride tickets and everybody is cramming into all the “hot” rides to get the most bang for the buck.
Or staying home because they don’t like any of the rides (six flags, great america) and all the rest of the ride only amusement parks
What we need, it seems, is a bundling of brothel and disney, so the kids have something to do while the dad is busy.
package deal prostitutes , , , wow, McSex.
TSG (comment #6):
At Mountain High in the San Gabriel Mountains in southern California you can buy traditional all-day (or 1/2-day or whatever) ski lift passes, but you can also by a pass with a number of points on it. When you scan these latter cards in the lift line, the appropriate number of points get deducted (longer lifts cost more points).
http://www.mthigh.com/rates/lifttickets.html
It’s more comparable to a ‘great cruise deal.’ But is emblematic of some “Disney Deals’ as well.(As the price is just too good and people end up spending way more than particular brothel, people receive a few free drinks. I think it is also custom for people to have to pay a lot more for actual services.
While the sticker price is relatively low, people leave with some beer in their stomach. Or a lot less cash in their wallet than originally intended. Realistically, it’s probably a lot of girls getting guys to buy overpriced champagne.
While more local residents may know this, most tourists probably do not. Anyways, $140 is hefty for beer and a decently cooked dinner.
Dude, yer old. No disrespect.
I think your lack of appetite (in the broadest sense) may be affecting your theorizing.
Most people consider it a convenience to not be nickel and dime’d at Disneyland and ski resorts, and I’m sure at the brothel, too. When skiing I think “am I getting my money’s worth?”, cuz I’m cheap, but rarely do I feel that I haven’t at the end of the day (unless I spend 3 hours drinking cuz the bartender’s cute.)
90% of the time, people rise to the challenge, and consume until satiated, at which point they think “I got my money’s worth”. Only if it’s a totally bad deal do they feel otherwise.
To offer alternative pricing would confuse people, all for a tiny minority who feel “I never get my money’s worth.” Of course, far more people are getting a “bad deal”, but they don’t realize it, or don’t care enough to stop.
Meanwhile, I also rarely do all-you-can-eat. But if they call it a buffet, that’s different. French makes it sounds less gross.
This made the headlines here in Germany too. The closest match is the final comment in the post itself–the author doesn’t go to all-you-can-eat restaurants because he doesn’t eat much. In the local press the madame of the establishment in question notes that the business model relies on the fact that men overestimate their abilities to engage in intercourse multiple times. Very very few can give it a go more than twice — and usually have a little blue pill to help them — so there’s no real threat to the stand business model. It’s all marketing.
Re #7:
That was my first reaction as well. I believe the analogy is pointing to the unlimited use of rides, not food. The use of rides is only limited by time and the number of other guests seeking to ride the same ride. The argument being made is that if the price is fixed regardless of the number of rides, the consumer gets the best bang for the buck by riding as many rides as possible. This likely produces more riders on rides in a day than would a pay per each ride model where the consumer would quit riding after the marginal benefit stopped exceeding the cost of the ride.