In my experience there are a small percentage of customers, bullies basically, who are toxic and have the ability to ruin the experience for your good customers by taking up an inordinate amount of resources in money, time and employee mental state. Maybe part of the reason they are cheap is because they don't pander to this type?

Dunno. I once tried to check in online, but the service was just giving me errors. Tried for half an hour.

When the service was back up, it wouldn't let me check in because that closes two hours before the flight. There were around 20 people at the check-in, all of which had had the same problem.

They made every single one pay 45 Euro per boarding pass, telling us to file a complaint later.

Filed a complaint, got a canned response "sorry, those are the rules". Didn't feel like suing them.

So, let me say this to Ryanair: "I'm very sorry for being toxic, and ruining the experience. Also: eat me!"

Do you not have recourse to a Small Claims Court or similar process where you are?

Here the mere threat of using the Small Claims Court is frequently sufficient to prompt adequate redress. No lawyers are allowed to advise parties. The head of the company has to show up in person and sit waiting on a bench along with everyone else waiting for the case to get called. Court sits outside of normal working hours, and there's no appeal. For small amounts it works incredibly efficiently.

Another horror story: A friend of mine had booked a trip with Ryanair to Hungary for a week, Sunday to next Saturday. A few days before the trip, Ryanair calls him and tells him that the Sunday flight is not going to happen due to low occupancy, but they can transfer his booking to the Sunday after that. He had already booked the hotel, so he only agreed grudgingly, figuring that he might be able to transfer that booking for next week and asked whether the return flight would be on a Saturday as well, but Ryanair's answer was incredible:

The Saturday (return) flight is going to fly as scheduled, so they said it wasn't their responsibility to reschedule it for free. He could either pay out of his pocket to reschedule his return flight (if he could find a suitable flight), or he could return from Hungary a day before he actually flew there.

Fuck Ryanair.

Could it be possible that your friend got in this mess because they booked two one-way tickets instead of a return ticket? If both flights were on the same PNR, I can't see how such a ticket would be valid.

You left it rather late to check in by the sound of it, though. Just saying

My tolerance for Ryanair is zero… I won't give my money to a business that treats me like shit

I wish I had such choice......ryanair is the only airline that flies anywhere near where I live. I could say "fuck you ryanair" and fly with someone else, but then my total journey time home would go up from 3 hours to about 8-9 hours. As much as I dislike them, I'm not going to make my life significantly more difficult and spend more money just to avoid them.

In the mid 80s the route I occasionally flew was monopolised by the national airlines of each country. There wasn't a penny difference between their fares at about ten times the usual fare today. Most people went by coach instead, a 12 hour miserable journey. Everyone flys it today thanks to Ryanair.

Yeah, exactly. Their flights are a mass product designed to be as cheap as possible, and not, say, a luxury premium gadget designed to open my garage doors from the comfort of my car without the need to find my _usual_ garage remote key, right? I can use my iPhone for that! How convenient! I will definitely pay $99 for this wonderful appliance, right with my second Aston Martin. /s