No shortage of advice and selling

My partner and I plan to head to Sweden next week. It will be one of the longer flights we have been on together. It might be the longest flight that I have been on in 20 years. I wrote an article a few weeks ago about surviving long-haul flights in economy class. Before and since I’ve been reading up and watching social media advice videos on the subject, some have been good and gone through the ergonomics of sleeping on a plane. (The short answer is economy class is not designed for it at all.) The majority of advice and videos had one thing in common.

They are trying to sell you something.

Most of the time, the links to the selling site give the creators a share of the sale. On the whole, I don’t have a problem with this. Folks have to make a living. Most of the time, I will open the link in an incognito window so that the next stuff I buy on Amazon doesn’t kick back to them.

I can hear the hate mail now. If it were something that I was seriously going to buy, I’d hit the link. Nearly all the time, I’m just looking. I hate buying things in the first place, and it takes me a while to get around to it.

What amazes me is that many creators link back to the same product. It’s like the brands that you see just start snowballing with links. This makes sense; people look up what others are saying and go with the same thing.

But if you are flying economy class, you might not be in the mindset to spend the money on the usually overpriced wares they are selling. Sometimes, just doing a term search on a shopping site will lead to the same thing cheaper. I’ve done this so many times with social media ads it’s not even funny. You do get the same thing cheaper.

I like the advice and tips that cost less or at least aren’t trying to make a buck off you. Sure, telling folks to step up and pay for seat selection is getting them to spend more. But I’m not getting a cut out of it.

A lot of advice seems to be to buy something. Take, as an example, getting better sleep on a plane. Nearly everyone says to get a neck pillow of some variety. How about this? Take a sweater, roll it up, and wrap the arms around your neck. Neck pillow, and you have a sweater to use later. All without another one-use item taking up space in your pack.

See good advice. As long as you already own a sweater. If not, I have one I recommend….