Those are very different things. The whole point behind loot boxes is that you never know what you're going to get, and it might be quite rare/valuable. With both Blue Apron like boxes and airplane tickets you know and select exactly what you're going to get.

I think with airplane tickets the costs can be quite variable, but you're right it doesn't make you want to buy more boxes.

With Blue Apron, the quality of ingredients always ends up shifting... some weeks were terrible, and it was always like "oh, maybe next week's box will be better?" In the end, it always ended up not being worth the price of subscription. I think sometimes they'd skimp on the cost/quality of a box, and then lead you to think that staying subscribed for the next week would be worth it.

Not completely analogous to loot boxes, but I think in both cases the design is still influenced by variable rewards systems, just not as obvious as loot boxes.

> it always ended up not being worth the price of subscription.

I mean, this is a given, right? They can't make money unless the price of the contents + shipping is less than what they charge you.

Although, this isn't obvious at sign up.