Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

I think your examples also highlight the issue at hand - the automated systems are great when they work, but when they don't work it means that there are now a lot fewer real humans that can solve your problem.

Take travel bookings. When I know where I'm going and have relatively firm dates, I'd much prefer the ease of online booking. However, when I'm more in the mood of "I want to go on vacation to country X, but I don't know a lot about that country or what the best places to stay/visit are" I've found myself wasting a ton of time on endless travel websites trying to get a better "feel" for what I want to visit. About 15 years ago I went on a long trip to Italy, and the travel agent was invaluable. These days I'm not even sure travel agents like that exist any more.

Somewhat tangential (or ominous) aside, I've found ChatGPT to be really the best tool for travel planning/travel ideas when you're in that "I have a general idea of the kind of vacation I want" mood.




Time was, that travel agent was pretty much your only option, unless you happened to have extremely well-traveled friends or family who could make an itinerary with you. Even finding a list of which airlines fly from where to where and the visa processes was a major hassle. Let alone making a connection at the other end. How would you even get a regional Italian train timetable without the internet? At least it would take an afternoon on the phone.

And if your local agents weren't good at it, or they only knew about, say, Spain in detail and not Italy, you'd be pretty out of luck.


And most of those travel agents, like the one at my office in my company in the 90s, knew how to book pretty cookie-cutter plane flights and cruises.

I used "adventure travel" companies in that period for other stuff and my dad had a specialty travel agent who mostly worked with other private adventure agents.


There is also the 'emergency' case where your room is double booked, your flight is cancelled, etc. For the most part, humans are the best at navigating edge cases (as opposed to a phone tree or an 'ai' that's hardly intelligent, and 90% in an emergency you're just tapping your foot to get to the person anyways).

Want to get to your destination that day? A travel agent is often 'in the know' about what myriad of connection options is most likely to get you there, particularly if the nonstops are all gone.


I do do trips through specialized agents, sometimes with guides sometimes without, so yeah I don’t depend on general travel agents in general.There are private trips for someone going through some of these companies but they’re probably pretty expensive




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2025 batch! Applications are open till Aug 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: