Jef--I agree with your assessment. I was just in NYC (at the WAVX shareholders meeting, fwiw...), and I was able to get a nice enough hotel room at the midtown Best Western, paying $100. While I was checking-in, I noticed what other folks checking-in were paying, and it was from a minimum of $160 to a maximum of $190. So, I, as a consumer, saved from $60-$100, and the hotel--with a perishable commodity--filled a room at a profit that otherwise might well have gone unfilled. Who is the loser here? Certainly not the consumer, and while the hotel didn't receive their full price, they still obviously found it economically worthwhile to give me the room for the price that I paid. The example is the same for airplane tickets, obviously (with the one caveat that you can't name your flight times, which is a major problem if you've got limited vacation days).
Whether the model will work for groceries, long-distance, mortgages, or not, I have no idea, but Priceline is spreading like a benevolent virus across the world, and I strongly believe that we'll continue to see an explosion of growth in the years to come. |
