> These companies have had so many fristrating policies for years — and this one is what you’re worried about?

Yes? Fuck that guy for wanting a company to abide by public policy; really?

I mean, this isn't an either/or situation; companies should follow the law. If they don't, they should be brought into compliance by the masses and the government.

---

As an aside, companies should want me to do business with them and they should make it as easy as fucking possible for me to spend my money. That includes potentially allowing me to use an agent to do so.

I disagree. Companies shouldn’t have to make it as easy as possible for you to pay them. Both sides of a deal may have their own standards.

[delayed]

They won’t care if you use an agent to spend money.

They do care if you “abuse” the return/support features.

Walmart accepts returns basically without question; if 89% of their orders were agents and eventually returned they’d change something.

Well we have seen some return/repair policies be abused and then degraded but I’m not sure this is the best example because typically it’s going to be a physical purchase, shipping costs, things like that whereas the airline example is a purely digital transaction in terms of where the AI comes in to play.

Overall though I think the “abuse” is a good thing as it eliminates pricing arbitrage that the airline is doing and forces them to change their business model and compete somewhere else or in a different manner. We shouldn’t enshrine business models without an extremely good reason.

I would say Uniter Airlines disallowing AI agents is because they want to follow the law

A common piece of advice for businesses is to fire your problematic customers. After a point they are just costing more than they are worth.

There's a difference between abusing a free API of a service to harass people vs "shut up and take my money".