> Again, it may not be the intended purpose, but getting to hire cleaning staff and not have to pay them American mimimum wage seems awfully convenient...

It absolutely is. In a sense it's a lot like migrant farm workers who come from Mexico to the US to pick our fruit. That's simultaneously a job that no American is willing to do for the wage it pays, and a job that is good enough / pays well enough to make sacrifices to travel and do for many Mexicans.

You talk to people who work on ships, and the story you get a lot is that, yeah, they work long hours and they're away from their families a lot of the year... but what they're paid, while by our standards really low, is also a lot more money they can make at home with the skills they have. For a lot of crew this is a sacrifice they choose to make so their kids can have better lives than they did when they were kids. I like to think I'd be willing to do the same in their situation.

You also will, for example, meet crew who are gay and from countries where it's dangerous to be gay or something similar and this is their way to be able to, essentially, escape and get to be who they are.

> As for planes, it's an efficient mode of transport for me, not a luxury. At worst I'm there for 12 hrs? At no point am I being sold the fantasy of an air resort or expected to mix and mingle with the hundreds of people on the flight.

Ok, then let me try: whatever you're picturing for crowding is probably not accurate on a modern ship. The biggest ships in the world will have thousands of passengers but also are, essentially, small floating cities.