Functionally, it’s proven to be a really great TV, particularly at the price point. At most, only one ad in the interface, and it’s for a movie typically.
Pete Buttigieg is part of the problem. He had his pick of posts, but he picked Secretary of Transportation, specifically so he could spread infrastructure money and attend ribbon-cuttings for four years, and avoid any serious matters that might blow back on him. Worse, he refuses to actually run the department like a serious leader, because he wants to keep big-business happy, so Wall Street donors fund his next presidential campaign.
A proper Secretary of Transportation would be all over the airlines and rail companies in this moment.
EDIT: I get the vibe that this is a hard truth, but you might spend a few minutes actually reading up on his tenure, the rail debacles, including the crushed strike, and the repeated lack of oversight on the airlines since 2021 as they have repeatedly gouged customers and cancelled thousands of flights. Buttigieg is studiously avoiding mixing it up on behalf of traveling Americans.
It’s kind of amazing that we don’t hear more stories of abused ex-students retaliating against specific teachers and administrators when the kids get older.
When I was in high school, many decades ago, we had an 11th grade teacher who treated students like shit—and took a kind of delight in her cruelty. A year after having her, a group of six seniors broke into her car, late on a Saturday night, and totaled it by destroying every bit of the interior, dash, stick shift column, and windows. It was a testament to how despised she was that it was pretty well known who had done it, but no one ever ratted them out.
Smith has set up the cleanest legal shot possible against Trump, removing as much complexity as possible from all aspects of the prosecution. He is against cameras because they introduce unforeseeable complexity.
I would love to see a reputable researcher try to calculate total lost revenues from travel avoidance.