Disabled passengers are still able to get assistance at disabled counters in airports, including blind people. But people who just refuse to put on reading glasses don't count unfortunately.

What market consolidation? Ryan air isn't just not the only option for consumers, it's not even the only low cost option in Ireland. The number of competitors to Ryanair are too high to count, and certainly massive enough in number that they are trivial to avoid on principle for any start / destination combination (which I already do).

You don't need to fly Ryanair to get cheap tickets. Many people didn't long before this announcement.

Indeed. I'm guessing it has some features like QR code reading and Bluetooth beacons for navigation around the airport.

Those aren't the worrying ones though, because you can refuse them. It's the mandatory ones that are the big problem.

Both people on your flight experiencing this problem can have it rectified at the customer service desk. Ryanair may be the first to mandate an app, but all budget airlines use them.

Next time you're at an airport flying a cheap airline take not of how many people have paper tickets vs use their smartphone already. I'll wager it's close to zero. It's certainly been the last couple of times I've flown Easyjet and Corendon (out of principle I don't fly Ryanair, there's such a thing as too cheap).

Your concern would be very relevant were we not talking about an airport. If there's one place I expect 100% of customers to have a nearly fully charged phone it's at an airport, since that's about the only in flight entertainment they will have. There are of course people not 100% charged. You can find those people standing at the countless places around any airport where you can charge your phone.

Normally I'm with you on this idea, but this is the one and only situation where I doubt it applies.

There are distinct benefits to having an app including live update information about flights, delays, where to find your bags, estimated queues. For the most part it is quite meaningless, and I don't typically do it (I usually use an app from a travel agent instead which provides this functionality too).

However the one time I did have an app on my phone from an airline it was an absolute godsend. Multiple planes got cancelled while I was in a layover. There were literally over 1000 people in Madrid queued at the emergency transfer desks and they were processing people at a snail's pace. Everyone who had the Iberia app on their phone got automatically rebooked onto their next available flight (notification popup asking if the new flight is acceptable, and when clicking okay we had new tickets automatically appear) and it was quite weird seeing about 20% of the massive queue suddenly step out.

I had one guy stop me as I was getting out of the queue asking me why everyone was leaving. He was pretty pissed when I told him the app sent me a notification that I had been rebooked and I needed to rush to my new plane while he was standing there with a paper ticket in hand and no idea when he was going to get home.

The whole point of Sonder's system was that there are no people. When you start and end with talking to a computer it can be very damn hard to communicate to real people. God knows there's a world of people who ignore phone calls these days. There's not even someone to talk to to check in.

We have the sole story of one disgruntled person. I wouldn't be so quick to make any assumptions.

Also what do you mean "Hotel"? Hotel is the antithesis of Sonder and Air-bnb. Those whole platforms are built around not being a hotel and not having the comforts of a hotel. Your use of that word makes me fundamentally think you don't know what is going on here.

Yes. Literally Marriott gave up on the company due to them being in a default position on what they owed Marriott.

That makes no sense for the consumer. They will be double charged. The problem is Sonder (the people who had the money from the customer) is bankrupt. But in any case Marriott did cover all consumers who booked via Marriott's systems, the problem is they have little insight beyond that.

99% of consumers don't care, especially when there's a 3rd party to be blamed. Now that it doesn't look good for Marriott what are you going to do? This is the Coca-Cola corporation vs Pepsi Co problem. You can choose not to drink coke and Pepsi, but if you want to cut of ties with both the mega companies in this field you're going to start having problems, it's not like you can drink Sprite, or Mountain Dew, or even water in some cases.

Those people who booked through Marriott into Sonder properties were covered. I don't know why you expect Marriott to cover some 3rd party business's bankruptcy losses.

Also are you sure Hilton contracted a 3rd party for a convention? That sounds unplausible. Normally the convention holders contract a 3rd party because they think Hilton charges too much convention / bulk booking services (which they definitely do), unless you were attending a hospitality convention, then what you said would make sense. You have a beef, but I doesn't look like it is with Hilton.

By the way there's countless Hotel customers who are one-offs in the world. It's rare to find repeated customers and the way hotels do that is with loyalty programs. I've only got some 30 nights with Hilton myself, but there's been plenty of times with another chain I stay at a LOT where they just don't actually give a crap about their policies anymore. It's hard for any company to know whether they are trading 1 night or 100, and the major chains are just big enough that they don't need to give a shit about individual customers anymore.

No one was staying at a Marriott... Actually some people were, and Marriott resolved their problems already. Marriott was little more then a partner on points and a co-mingled booking system.

Why not blame the credit card company who you used to pay while you're at it. They have about as close of a relationship to this mess.

This may not even remotely be possible. Firstly Sonder collapsed on its own. The Marriott deal collapsing was just the final nail in the coffin. Ultimately it was Sonder who was bankrupt and Sonder who couldn't handle paying the properties. Marriott didn't kick out anyone.

Marriott provided little more than the booking platform that was only partially used by Sonder, and some point sharing for Sonder customers, and while Marriott has said they were making arrangements for people who booked Sonder properties directly through Marriott's website, they claim have no insight into other bookings through Sonder or 3rd party agents. It seems most of the people complaining were those.

Marriott doesn't need either. They are no longer a hotel. They are a mega global chain. You've likely stayed at Marriott hotels without even knowing. I know I certainly have had situations where I didn't realise a property was Marriott owned until I saw the Marriott logo on a card at the check-in desk. At this point, with their size, word of mouth advertising means nothing to them.

This wasn't about consumers, it was about developers you mid-wits. This is nothing more than an attempt from Apple to gaslight the EU by somehow claiming that something that worked exactly as intended, wasn't working.

The EU generally concerns itself with more than just consumers when it looks at market power. Virtually none of the anti-trust related rulings in the past decade have been because of consumers, they've all targeted developers and B2B restrictions.

Google Play lists all the permissions:

Device & app history
        retrieve running apps

Location
        approximate location (network-based)
        precise location (GPS and network-based)

Phone
        read phone status and identity

Photos / Media / Files
        read the contents of your USB storage
        modify or delete the contents of your USB storage

Storage
        read the contents of your USB storage
        modify or delete the contents of your USB storage

Camera
        take pictures and videos

Wi-Fi connection information
        view Wi-Fi connections

Device ID & call information
        read phone status and identity

Other
        receive data from Internet
        view network connections
        pair with Bluetooth devices
        access Bluetooth settings
        connect and disconnect from Wi-Fi
        full network access
        control Near-Field Communication
        run at startup
        reorder running apps
        control vibration
        prevent device from sleeping
        read Google service configuration

You can refuse some of those permissions, but it's still a hell of a lot.

That's the key point that people always forget, or simply don't know. Most Chinese people are happy with how things are going. Life is getting better every year. They feel like they are involved in local decisions, and that the government is looking out for them.

I asked a guy about all the CCTV cameras on roads. I noticed them because, unlike the ones in the UK that are hidden and quietly record number plates in a central police database all over the country, the ones in China have a flash so you can't miss them. As well as the licence plate, they get a photo of the driver, hence the need for the flash. I was a bit alarmed, but he said they keep everyone safe and help the police catch criminals. Exactly the same justification used in the UK, only with better PR.

I do 99% of my coding in C these days. I used to do some C# stuff, but it's been a while.

So for me a decent IDE is very very helpful.