Say that flights are on average 80% full, 20% of passengers are tall and will be miserable for the whole flight if they’re reclined into, 50% of passengers want to recline, and planes are shaped like donuts so that every seat has a seat behind it.
If passengers behave like you, then 8% of passengers are miserable in exchange for 50% of passengers getting to recline. If passengers instead ask before reclining (or unrecline if asked to), then 0% of passengers are miserable and 42% get to recline. The passengers pick between these two situations.
The second situation is better than the first. Should airlines not allow seats to recline, or increase spacing between seats by (say) 12% and thus increase ticket prices by (say) 8%, because passengers like you insist on choosing the first situation over the second?
If passengers instead ask before reclining (or unrecline if asked to), then 0% of passengers are miserable and 42% get to recline. The passengers pick between these two situations.
First: you assume that if someone in front of me reclines then I am miserable, but if I don’t recline when I want to then I am not miserable.
This is a bad assumption. It is entirely unwarranted.
In other words, why do you say that “0% of passengers are miserable and 42% get to recline” is better than “8% of passengers are miserable in exchange for 50% of passengers getting to recline”? You would have to show that the disutility of having the person in front of you recline, exceeds the utility of reclining (or, equivalently, the disutility of not reclining). You have certainly not done so.
Second: have you thought about this problem for five minutes and attempted to find a better solution? Here’s one, just off the top of my head: arrange the passengers such that all the recliners are grouped and all the tall people—who are non-recliners, right? surely they wouldn’t be so hypocritical as to hate when the person in front of them reclines, but recline themselves?—are grouped. That way, with a donut-shaped plane (why are we assuming this, again? but never mind that), there will be at most one (1) tall person who is miserable the whole flight (if the non-tall person in front of him chooses to recline, which is not guaranteed)—but the number of people who get to enjoy reclining is unchanged. This is clearly superior to either of your two scenarios. (Airlines can implement this by selling reclining and non-reclining seats; they could even price-discriminate, perhaps.)
But third, and most importantly, such a naive utilitarian approach to this problem is entirely misguided. Why do you compare only these two situations, and do not include, say, the situation where everyone reclines, customers get angry at the lack of room, and competition forces airlines to provide better layouts? Or the situation where people stop flying as much (because they hate having to not recline, and also hate it when people recline in front of them) and instead take more trains (or whatever)? Or… etc.?
Wow, this got heated fast. Partly my fault. My assumptions were unwarranted and my model therefore unrealistic. Sorry.
I think we’ve been talking past each other. Some clarifications on my position:
I’m not suggesting that one only reclines if one is given permission to do so from the person behind them. I’m suggesting cooperation on the act that is controlled by one person but effects two people. If reclining is a minor convenience to the person in front, but would crush the legs of the person behind, it does not happen. If the person in front has a back problem and the person in back is short, reclining does happen.
None of the blame goes toward other passengers. The blame all goes to the airlines. If you want to recline but don’t get to, that’s the airline’s fault. If you don’t want the person in front of you to recline but they do, that’s the airline’s fault. They should make better seat arrangements. I would preferentially fly on an airline that didn’t stuff me in like cattle. I’m all for protesting with you about this.
If you disagree with this, would you agree that if airplanes were naturally occurring rather than being engineered, then the decision of whether to recline should be a conversation between the two people it effects? If so, what breaks the symmetry between the two effected people, when the situation is engineered by the airline?
EDIT: Or, to get at my emotional crux, if my very long legs would be smooshed if you were to recline, and reclining was a minor convenience for you, would you say “ok, I won’t recline, but let’s be angry at the airline for putting us in this situation”, or “nope I’m reclining anyways, blame the airline”?
Or “pay me to not recline such that it more than covers the loss of utility for me”.
I think this might be more expensive than you think it is, because ability to sleep with less discomfort is very valuable, and many airline seats punish people for being <5′10″.
I’m not suggesting that one only reclines if one is given permission to do so from the person behind them. I’m suggesting cooperation on the act that is controlled by one person but effects two people. If reclining is a minor convenience to the person in front, but would crush the legs of the person behind, it does not happen. If the person in front has a back problem and the person in back is short, reclining does happen.
The problem with this is that it creates an incentive for both people to claim that the magnitude of their inconvenience / discomfort / etc. is the greater one. (See Vladimir_M’s comments on this classic post for a thorough discussion and analysis of this phenomenon.)
If you disagree with this, would you agree that if airplanes were naturally occurring rather than being engineered, then the decision of whether to recline should be a conversation between the two people it effects?
No. The same problem arises in this case also.
Or, to get at my emotional crux, if my very long legs would be smooshed if you were to recline, and reclining was a minor convenience for you, would you say “ok, I won’t recline, but let’s be angry at the airline for putting us in this situation”, or “nope I’m reclining anyways, blame the airline”?
The problem with this question is that your scenario description is only coherent from a god’s-eye view of the situation. From my point of view, the scenario is “reclining is a minor convenience for me, and the person behind me claims that it would be a major discomfort for him if I were to recline”. But if my predictable reaction to such a claim is not to recline, then this means that you had a clear incentive (with no apparent downside) to make the claim, which in turn means that I cannot trust your claim. At the very least, it seems very likely that you’d exaggerate your claim, if not outright fabricate it.
(And, of course, all of this is if we take a utilitarian approach to the matter in the first place.)
There are, at most, two Schelling points here, if we assume that the airlines change nothing about their business practices: (a) everyone reclines whenever they feel like it and are able to do so, and (b) nobody reclines ever. But there is no clear way to get to (b) from where we are, and I personally prefer (a) to (b). (Of course, I even more strongly prefer not to have to have the sort of customer experience where I have to deal with such a choice, and this is just one of the many, many reasons why I don’t fly these days.)
EDIT: I no longer endorse this model.
Say that flights are on average 80% full, 20% of passengers are tall and will be miserable for the whole flight if they’re reclined into, 50% of passengers want to recline, and planes are shaped like donuts so that every seat has a seat behind it.
If passengers behave like you, then 8% of passengers are miserable in exchange for 50% of passengers getting to recline. If passengers instead ask before reclining (or unrecline if asked to), then 0% of passengers are miserable and 42% get to recline. The passengers pick between these two situations.
The second situation is better than the first. Should airlines not allow seats to recline, or increase spacing between seats by (say) 12% and thus increase ticket prices by (say) 8%, because passengers like you insist on choosing the first situation over the second?
First: you assume that if someone in front of me reclines then I am miserable, but if I don’t recline when I want to then I am not miserable.
This is a bad assumption. It is entirely unwarranted.
In other words, why do you say that “0% of passengers are miserable and 42% get to recline” is better than “8% of passengers are miserable in exchange for 50% of passengers getting to recline”? You would have to show that the disutility of having the person in front of you recline, exceeds the utility of reclining (or, equivalently, the disutility of not reclining). You have certainly not done so.
Second: have you thought about this problem for five minutes and attempted to find a better solution? Here’s one, just off the top of my head: arrange the passengers such that all the recliners are grouped and all the tall people—who are non-recliners, right? surely they wouldn’t be so hypocritical as to hate when the person in front of them reclines, but recline themselves?—are grouped. That way, with a donut-shaped plane (why are we assuming this, again? but never mind that), there will be at most one (1) tall person who is miserable the whole flight (if the non-tall person in front of him chooses to recline, which is not guaranteed)—but the number of people who get to enjoy reclining is unchanged. This is clearly superior to either of your two scenarios. (Airlines can implement this by selling reclining and non-reclining seats; they could even price-discriminate, perhaps.)
But third, and most importantly, such a naive utilitarian approach to this problem is entirely misguided. Why do you compare only these two situations, and do not include, say, the situation where everyone reclines, customers get angry at the lack of room, and competition forces airlines to provide better layouts? Or the situation where people stop flying as much (because they hate having to not recline, and also hate it when people recline in front of them) and instead take more trains (or whatever)? Or… etc.?
Wow, this got heated fast. Partly my fault. My assumptions were unwarranted and my model therefore unrealistic. Sorry.
I think we’ve been talking past each other. Some clarifications on my position:
I’m not suggesting that one only reclines if one is given permission to do so from the person behind them. I’m suggesting cooperation on the act that is controlled by one person but effects two people. If reclining is a minor convenience to the person in front, but would crush the legs of the person behind, it does not happen. If the person in front has a back problem and the person in back is short, reclining does happen.
None of the blame goes toward other passengers. The blame all goes to the airlines. If you want to recline but don’t get to, that’s the airline’s fault. If you don’t want the person in front of you to recline but they do, that’s the airline’s fault. They should make better seat arrangements. I would preferentially fly on an airline that didn’t stuff me in like cattle. I’m all for protesting with you about this.
If you disagree with this, would you agree that if airplanes were naturally occurring rather than being engineered, then the decision of whether to recline should be a conversation between the two people it effects? If so, what breaks the symmetry between the two effected people, when the situation is engineered by the airline?
EDIT: Or, to get at my emotional crux, if my very long legs would be smooshed if you were to recline, and reclining was a minor convenience for you, would you say “ok, I won’t recline, but let’s be angry at the airline for putting us in this situation”, or “nope I’m reclining anyways, blame the airline”?
Or “pay me to not recline such that it more than covers the loss of utility for me”.
I think this might be more expensive than you think it is, because ability to sleep with less discomfort is very valuable, and many airline seats punish people for being <5′10″.
The problem with this is that it creates an incentive for both people to claim that the magnitude of their inconvenience / discomfort / etc. is the greater one. (See Vladimir_M’s comments on this classic post for a thorough discussion and analysis of this phenomenon.)
No. The same problem arises in this case also.
The problem with this question is that your scenario description is only coherent from a god’s-eye view of the situation. From my point of view, the scenario is “reclining is a minor convenience for me, and the person behind me claims that it would be a major discomfort for him if I were to recline”. But if my predictable reaction to such a claim is not to recline, then this means that you had a clear incentive (with no apparent downside) to make the claim, which in turn means that I cannot trust your claim. At the very least, it seems very likely that you’d exaggerate your claim, if not outright fabricate it.
(And, of course, all of this is if we take a utilitarian approach to the matter in the first place.)
There are, at most, two Schelling points here, if we assume that the airlines change nothing about their business practices: (a) everyone reclines whenever they feel like it and are able to do so, and (b) nobody reclines ever. But there is no clear way to get to (b) from where we are, and I personally prefer (a) to (b). (Of course, I even more strongly prefer not to have to have the sort of customer experience where I have to deal with such a choice, and this is just one of the many, many reasons why I don’t fly these days.)