possibly luddite confessions

1. I’ve never bought or sold anything on eBay. On a couple of occasions, I have browsed eBay and have been amazed at the sort of things which can be found there. I hesitate for a few reasons, although now I think that most of my security concerns have been allayed. But all the same, I’m in no hurry to pick up another computer-related pastime.
2. I like to subscribe to the print version of my city’s daily newspaper. Yes, I also look at local newspapers online and even on my mobile phone, but I’ve learned that not everything is published in the electronic formats. There is a difference between reading online and reading in print. The good thing about reading the paper version is that you are not dependent upon headlines to decide whether or not you’ll read an article. It is a experience which is more open to serendipity, finding interesting things by chance and getting out of one’s ruts. When I subscribed to the Sydney Morning Herald, I never realized I was being entered into a competition – and I ended up winning a whole lot of furniture. Which was very welcome for me because I had to give away or sell cheaply all my American furniture, when I moved back to Australia, exactly one year ago today.
3. I prefer to use travel agents to book flights. I have travelled between Tasmania and Minnesota many times. For this complicated international flight, which would involve up to 3 different airlines and several legs, it was always much cheaper and easier to go through a travel agent than going directly to the airline or trying the travel sites. If it’s a simple trip and there’s a good special for booking on the web site, then I will take advantage of this, and now that I’m living in Sydney, I imagine that this will happen more often. But even so, I am very interested to see how travel agents cope in this new environment. Travel agents and librarians (and journalists too) are particularly affected by the disintermediation trends on the internet. I don’t say endangered, because it doesn’t have to be like that. I think that disintermediation has hit travel agents first and hardest, and I wonder if there are any lessons which librarians can learn from the experience of travel agents.

Comments

[walt crawford]

You're not the only one (for #1 and #2, at least)--but I *don't* look at local papers online, at least not very often: I don't have the need.

As for #3, if I had the complex trips you have, I might use a travel agent--but our travel agent (who we always use for cruises) deals with disintermediation by charging a fee [refundable for cruise bookings and others where there's still a worthwhile commission]. She also knows to *offer* to do related hotel bookings, for example, but that I'll probably do them myself.

[christine]

I have always gotten a better deal using a travel agent than a travel site. I've found if you say "I found X ticket for Y price on Travelocity, can you go lower?" they almost always say yes.