Bangkok trip report: 10 Days of Bliss.

[vinapu]

8 hours ago, Marc308 said:

 One of the founding principles of the Internet is/was "disintermediation"

Another one was that internet will stop spreading false news as, everybody can check the facts easily. And now  where we are?

Soon takers of vaccines and believers in round earth will be endangered and hopefully protected minority. So much about those promises. 

[vinapu]

8 hours ago, Marc308 said:

Screw the bar mafia. Who needs middlemen. Why not use it? I prefer the money go to the service provider. 

In ideal world, yes. In real bars have their uses, first being security. If something won't work, you know where to go and complain, something missing from your room, ditto. The same works for boys. Customer  mistreats them  they can ask for help. Boy doesn't show up for work and even his friends won't now where he is, alarm may be sound. 

Second - in bar we see what we are buying, we can touch and sniff.  On apps it's on wings and prayer which I learned last week by call boy over for massage. Version which showed I the lobby was boy from picture  just 7 years older and 14ckg heavier. Thanks God massage was great but great massage  can have from 60 y.o. granny.

So for people  like me, where looks kind of counts before making commitments bars hVe their uses. 

And so it has for those who rather spend their 2 hours ogling boys on the stage, no matter how ugly, glass of beer in hand than nervously combing the screen seeking for that perfect match. 

Firing up smartphone rarely generates a trill but there's nice tingling all over when over approaches Moonlight or Arena, just to name a few. 

[Marc308]

Thanks V I appreciate hearing your perspective on all this. I understand that if my perspective were to dominate, the bars would soon crumble (as they already have in BT and SP). 

1. I realize there is this aura of "safety" around the bar scene. Of course most of it is sheer fabrication. In the old days, we were told that the boys were regularly screened for STDs and HIV. That was a ruse. Then we were told we could complain to the mamasan if provided services were substandard. Well good luck with that one too. 

2. Your argument about "touch and sniff" reminds me of the early objections to using Amazon (and some other ecommerce disintermediated sites). Yes you can disappointed by quality, sure it is possible. I can recall times when offing someone from the bar yielded a boy who "turned a switch" the moment he left the bar, leading to disappointment. It happens from either source.

3. Finally, I was talking about the bars only. Massage houses, saunas (do I miss Babylon!), and other establishments where meetings are possible is a slightly different matter. We do agree, for example, on Arena which I happen to like. At least in this situation you pay for a room from your "fee" not pay for nothing (as has been adequately documented by the OP and throughout this thread). 

4. Also I was not talking specifically about apps either. While I do use them, the pain of using the "free" version will drive you crazy. And the prices they charge (I am talking about you, Grindr!) to rid oneself of most of the annoyances is crazy high.  

I realize if time is of the essence perhaps bars are the more expedient way to go. If you have some time though, I think serendipity is a far more satisfying way to explore. Let me give you one example: I had a farang friend in Pattaya who specialized in mototaxi boys. He was an aficionado about who was available, about how to strike the deal, what to look for, what to be wary of, etc. He definitely got many interesting "rides" alright! 

[macaroni21]

I can write a long post about the value propositions (or lack thereof) of gogo bars in Thailand, and an even longer compare-and-contrast with the booming massage industry.

However, whether a gogo bar still offers value despite rising prices will depend on an individual's wants and priorities. However, this statement does not end the discussion either, because as prices rise but the product offer remains the same, the remaining number of customers who still consider it value will decline; and at some point, the business or industry becomes unsustainable.

The more specific issue arising from @spoon's incident, however, is, at heart, not even a price/value question. It is more accurately seen as a penalty charge which the bar wanted to impose for a customer choosing a lower-priced option, which hitherto, has long been a legitimate option. The bar was not even trying to trade. It wasn't saying, we're charging you more because we're giving you more value. It was trying to punish a customer for taking the lower-price option.

Kind of like, if we booked an economy-class ticket rather than a business class one, the airline gets miffed that it is losing revenue and then suddenly says, oh, you have to pay a $XXXX surcharge if you're not flying business class.