Their current pattern is more about playing into the fear of what happens without insurance, without selecting your seat, when you don't pay for early check in and forget to do it online on the day before the flight, or what happens if you show up with more or larger luggage than what you booked. Fears they themselves create with high fees for showing up with too much luggage or for checking in at the airport
There is still a bit of praying on people who are in a hurry or are impatient, don't read the screens and just click the most prominent button. The most obvious is the seat selection. But it's no longer the most prominent way they get you
I remember them being crafty, but I have to admit I was surprised by the level of tactics ... that is to say, what they are still allowed to get away with given European / UK consumer law.
Not to mention that a 20kg bag and hand luggage cost me significantly more than the fare itself. They even had upfront "package deals" that would have actually worked out more expensive - bundles of nonsense benefits.
In Australia most of this kind of borderline deceptive selling has been stepped on, to the point that you hardly see it any more.
One of these sites offered the ticket for dozens of Euros cheaper, and allowed me to go through the booking process until the end: I entered my CC, hit "Buy", and the next page was "Oops, the flight is no longer available at this price. The price now is: [the same price as booking with the airline]. Would you like to complete the purchase with this new price anyway?".
Fucking hell, it pissed me off so much that I said no and booked it with the airline after all.
I'd recommend never ever using reseller agents. They frequently mess up tickets, they sell tickets that don't exist at all, and most of them won't forward your contact info to the airline's system, so if there's a problem or delay you'll never receive the notification from the airline. (Including coupons, hotel room offers in case of cancellation and other stuff)
The airlines may be bad but the resellers are worse.
So I'll typically use a service like Google Flights to find a flight, pick an itinerary, but then go to the airline's web page to book the flight directly.
Same for hotels. Find a hotel on Expedia, then book with the hotel directly.
I've seen too many horror stories of people booking through a reseller, and if something goes wrong, the reseller tells you to talk to the hotel/airline while the hotel/airline tells you to talk to the reseller.
Save your points and use them on hotels instead, where the experience is just as risky, but at least fails in a less spectacular way when it goes wrong e.g. unless you're booking with an agent in a high demand area where there are NO hotels you usually can leverage a backup plan a lot easier than if you are stuck in an airport.
I've never been stranded when I've contacted the hotel directly, via their website or the phone. Sometimes a glitch does happen, but when it does the hotel will call around on your behalf and find you a room.
I think they may actually have gotten in trouble for that one; they've stopped doing it (as noted in the article it was from eight years ago).
After 32 years of Ryanair in its current incarnation nobody can claim naivety. Dance with the devil and he pipes the tune.
I don't really have a problem with offering discounts to members of X program, or if insurance is pre-selected.
But the advertised price should be inclusive of everything (taxes, fees, charges, etc) and the price available to the general product before membership-exclusive pricing.
So if you advertise a product for $100 then any normal person can pay $100 and get it for that.
Want to sell it from cheaper to members of your reward program? Go ahead. But it can't be the most prominent price advertised for it.
You want to sell insurance pre-selected? No problem but again the default advertised price needs to include it. Even if they can opt out for a cheaper price.
There are sure to be edge cases. But the point being is that the price you advertise most prominently needs to be the all-inclusive price any member of the public can get without having to fight to select the correct option.
We don't accept misleading and deceptive practices in other areas, why do we let airlines, hotels and hire car places do it?
Religion and politics.