Exactly. Much like the fact that everyone complains about Basic Economy airfares ("they're nickel-and-dime'ing you for carry-on!!!") the reality is that in the face of competition, people still just choose the lowest airfare.

Same with rental cars. Everyone complains about reservations, but when push comes to shove people aren't actually willing to put their money where their mouths (and complaints) are.

Personally I think the opposite: that there isn’t actually sufficient competition for whatever reason. It seems to me that people choose the lowest fares because unless you pay double there’s not going to be a meaningful difference between slightly different economy fares. Likewise AFAIK there is no option to prepay or pay a deposit to reserve a rental car and have it be guaranteed.

The challenge is that it’s clear the vast majority are willing to put up with a lot to get a low fare.

And that includes me. I remember flying return from SFO to Barcelona for $500 on a budget international airline (Norwegian Air). No food service, no drink service, but it was a A380 fleet so quite comfortable. Read the fine print and you avoid all excess charges like printing tickets, bagged checkin fees, etc. Cheaper than flying return from SFO to NYC.

For those that aren’t willing to go cheap, there is now Premium Economy which seems to be growing in size as a class. I think Singapore Airlines now run flights that dont have basic economy any more. It’s either premium economy or business.

The complainers are not a cross section of customers. The complainers generally are high end luxury consumers who can and would pay more but there aren't enough of them to actually actually matter beyond noise making. The people who are penny pinching are happy they can get the right good or service at the right price.

If it were easy(-ier) to compare apples to apples with the “add ons” I wouldn’t care. But when one airline is $50 for a bag on a certain flight but $30 on others and another airline is $20, it’s hard to know which airfare is actually cheaper. And this is one way they keep you married to them, with rewards and so on, by eliminating those for loyalty. Amex Platinum avoids most of this, but you can only get the nickel and dime repaid from one airline at a time.

Thank you for reminding the room that markets can fail to provide at a middle price tier because there simply aren’t enough people willing to pay. The only remaining options are the super-premium, which most of what would have been the middle market can’t afford, and basic economy.

The problem is that you usually desperately need a car when you are at the pick-up point. I can only drive an automatic and am less than 5' tall so some cars are just too big for me. I've had times where instead of the car I have booked, I'm only offered cars that I can't legally or safely drive. I just now don't arrange any travel that requires a rental car. Which is limiting but not sure what else to do!

100% Clearly they could offer that option - "pay now (non refundable) to reserve this exact car" but it's a pretty obvious solution if this was really a problem and the fact that they don't do that suggests that it isn't.

Honestly it never even occurred to me that anyone would care. On car hire websites they're pretty explicit that you're getting a certain kind of car, not an exact model.

That only holds if there's an alternative you can go to that will actually have what you reserved.

If the entire industry, having raced to the bottom years ago, operates the same way, how is the unavailability going to hurt them in practice? You're still standing at their desk, needing a car.