Eh, we might be all better off if a lack of curiosity was more regularly financially excruciating.

I would counter this by saying we might all be better off if consumer protection laws were stronger and actively enforced against this.

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?

"We don't accept misleading and deceptive practices in other areas"

Religion and politics.

I just want to see a price and book a flight, not engage in an online escape room with financial consequences.

Better off by being exhausted on never trusting any purchasing process? No, thank you, I don't need nor want to be curious when I just want to purchase a flight ticket.

Totally disagree. The cost of every single customer doing this for many different purchases is immense, and a completely unproductive use of time. It would be much better if pricing was as clear as possible so people can make make good purchasing decisions and move onto thinking about things that are actually interesting or useful.

Why, you think you're German and Ryanair is Lufthansa?

Yes, let's pit ordinary people against gigantic companies with teams of highly paid experts who spend all day figuring out how to deceive them.

Eh, we might be collectively better of if we just all robbed your house