This is pretty
, but bear with me:
As a Kentucky basketball fan, the whole FP+ experience reminds me (a little) of a debate about what to do with UK's b-ball arena, Rupp Arena. It is aging, but still a great place to watch basketball. There was a proposal recently that the mayor of Lexington was behind, as well as a lot of Lexington builders, etc. Much to everyone's surprise
, it was an outrageously expensive proposal, and seemed likely to be filled with kickbacks, etc. that public works often involve.
However, though I don't like the greedy aspects of it, what
really made me oppose it from almost the beginning was the pie-in-the-sky overpromising and certain under-delivering that would have certainly occurred, much like FP+ for Disney. The architects were claiming that they were going to: a) keep Rupp Arena within the same footprint that it already occupies, b) not have any seats be any further away from the b-ball floor than they already are, c) convert all bleacher seats in the steep upper deck to individual seats with backs and cupholders, d) put in corporate suites somewhere, and e) not lose a single seat of its approximately 24,000 seat capacity. Doing all of these things is literally impossible without moving walls back, changing the footprint, sacrificing some seating capacity, etc. Something must give.
It was so expensive, and so unrealistic sounding (though the artist renderings were extremely cool), that even UK itself wanted no part of it, and the taxpayers in the rest of the state (who all love their UK basketball) let it be known they wanted no part of it, since it would have certainly required a state bailout eventually.
I wish whoever the decision makers at Disney who approved the FP+ implementation had had a similar skepticism as the skeptics of the Rupp Arena revamp. As has been said, something has to give, but it seems like whoever approved the FP+ implementation forgot this simple fact.
There, I said it again for you. 
