Had to triple check that this wasn't satire after reading the first two points. Focusing on familiarity with buzzwords and trendy tools is exactly the wrong thing to do.

When you say "expected value" are you trying to say most likely value?

No, I mean the mathematical mean, not mode. If you take this action infinitely many times, what is your average (mean) return? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_value

I see, so you're saying the expected profit on the trade is $0 assuming an efficient market and ignoring trading costs? Your comment is confusing the way it's worded because the expected value of the option is non-zero.

Ah, sorry for that. I meant E[return on option - cost of option] ~= 0.

You can reliably lose money in absence of commissions by buying at the ask and selling at the bid. You can't invert that to make money.

You can invert it by becoming a market maker, though you'll need some heavy tech for that.

Because most people search fares online and book the cheapest ticket.

Do they? I certainly don't behave that way. Fares are definitely something I factor in heavily, but a $10 difference isn't something I consider significant.

Long before that point, I start looking at other factors like departure and arrival times and whether I like the airline.

For example, I just did a quick search, and for $25 more total round trip, I can get nonstop flights both ways. I didn't specify nonstop as a search filter (since there are few nonstop flights between these two cities), but now that I know it's only $25 more, I'd pick that.

Most people dont fly often enough to have brand preferences about airlines.

>Currently air travel is a completely homogeneous service. There is basically no difference from one company to the other, so it makes no sense not to go with the cheapest

Where are you getting this? Tons of airlines provide varying levels of service/amenities. Only thing that is homogeneous is that you get from A to B.

I think you are onto something there, but you should have phrased it another way.

E.g. I think airlines were caught in a devils agreement with air travel search engines.

They gave them access to their flights, and the search engines had to find the simplest qualities to compare fares on. That usually meant price.

So you have tons of airlines with no clear value proposition differences in a search result, and it leads to the equilibrium being a devastating fight for lowest price.

Getting from A to B is the most important service an airline provides. The seats are always cramped, so the degree doesn't matter terribly. Even on their website, I can't search by "flight has power outlets". Nor is the wifi speed available, or even consistent. Maybe the problem is that airlines don't have a value prop relative to each other at all.

Wow, I have a very different experience than you. I've noticed vast differences in airlines, how cramped they are, the cleanliness of their planes, the amenities inside the plane, the quality of the food offerings, even the attitude of the staff . And, having experienced all these different airlines, when I'm on a route i've been before I'm apt to pick the airline that gave me the best experience if other things are relatively comparable (price/time)

Even on the same airline, often there are partnerships. For example JAL/American and ANA/United I'm make sure to book the fight run by the Japanese partner not the American partner and the experience will be night and day. The Japanese plane will be clean the USA plane will be less clean. The Japanese staff will be friendly and service oriented. The USA staff will make me feel like I'm a burden on them and they'd rather be doing anything than their job. The food, even though it's airplane food, will be higher quality on the Japanese airline. Etc...

It might well be, but we can't be sure, because just like you said that info is not available in an easily comparable form.

It's gonna be interesting to see the growth of new airlines now that COVID is a thing.

Low prices seem to be a given, but customers are expecting service that accommodates their new fears related to air flight.

You can't search for "Flight has power outlets" because the airline doesn't necessarily know that the flight will have power outlets until the day of the flight.

They aren't going to advertise "Flight has an 80% chance of having power outlets". And likewise, they don't want to deal with customers complaining that a power outlet flight did not, indeed have power outlets.

> Currently air travel is a completely homogeneous service. There is basically no difference from one company to the other

Southwest has a pretty loyal following since you can "refund" a ticket for Southwest credit good for a year.

Alaska and Delta don't charge for bike fees (they're just priced like ordinary luggage).

And aside from maybe 1K members, I don't know anyone who enjoys flying United.

Framing it as a loan seems like a good way to get funds out as quickly as possible while making it easier to get back anything that's misused.

“actualllllyyyyy” he’s saying something different. If you take a 0.3% chance for N days where N is large, you’ll land it 0.003N times, or once every ~333 days.

The chance of landing it within any particular window of K days is a different concept (which you showed how to reason about).

You're right! Edited my comment.

Depends on your field. If you're studying mathematics or computer science, learning happens mostly through deep work in isolation and there's enough material out there (books, papers, etc.) to support more than a lifetime of problem-solving.

Events and conversations might offer superficial exposure to new ideas or areas of interest but actual understanding requires extended, focused thought that nobody else can do for you.

In mathematics it's pretty easy to get stuck and I imagine having a regular 1-on-1s with a tutor could be of great help. (However, Internet forums could to some degree perform similar function).

You need to be smarter than volume-weighted average, not smarter than the average participant. The demographic you have in mind is trading relatively small amounts of capital.

Calculating opportunity cost for time spent based on wages is pretty meaningless for salaried jobs. I might make $X/hr at my day job, but I don't actually have the ability to work an extra hour and get an extra X dollars.

These are funny thoughts actually. I have full-time job and also do freelancing. The last part is pretty flexible. I can always do more work and later bill it. This makes everything I do in life computable in monetary terms. I watch TV for an hour? It costs me 100usd - example, not my actual hourly rate. And I do not really get tired of work or coding, I just really want to watch that TV show. But it is weird to think that it costs me 100usd. This aspect actually made me hire a cleaning service and always order food in, because I can spend the time working instead of cooking, shopping and cleaning. Which I of course enjoy more as well. Not only is it temporary financial gain, but any extra time spent coding will be an investment towards mu future to make me a better coder. Of course it is a double edged sword. Hanging out with my girlfriend? 500usd. I also spent my last vacation fully freelancing. Of course I have goals to achieve financial indepence asap though.