Am I an old man yelling at clouds or has everything turned into an absolute rip-off in the last 5-10 years?

[jbj]

Seen an interesting one last week.

I'm about to pull the trigger on gig tickets and I get a message saying another local venue is struggling financially, would I like to donate to them. Cost of living crisis makes it harder for places to survive etc...

Which is all well and good but it's essentially a privately owned bar asking for charity during said cost of living crisis so no, I won't be contributing to that nonsense.

 

[2manband]

Yesterday I was going to book a little cabin at a lake for a long weekend getaway with the family in June. They asked if I’d like to pay a $25 fee to lock in my reservation so I wouldn’t get bumped to another “equivalent accommodation” based on demand. Fuck no I wouldn’t. Thats precisely why I’m making a reservation for cabin #5 in February. That’s what a reservation IS. There’s a Seinfeld bit about this from 30 years ago.

Then, when I got my total, there was the fee for the rental, plus taxes and whatnot, all itemized in my shopping cart. But the total was $50 more than the sum of the parts. For no reason whatsoever, and with no explanation, a $50 “caught you not paying attention” fee was added to the total.

It’s a shame - we’ve booked there many times in the past with the previous owner. A nice older couple. Dude spent half a hour one day giving me pointers on striper fishing. But they retired and sold the place and I just can’t do it with these new corporate pricks. I want to go there and relax, not worry about what they’re gonna charge to my credit card the second I’m not paying attention.