Las Vegas once sold itself as the ultimate escape: cheap rooms, affordable entertainment, endless attractions and a weekend where ordinary Americans could live a little larger than usual.
Then the pricing changed.
A $26 bottle of water at Aria became a national punchline and, for many frustrated visitors, a symbol of what had happened to the Las Vegas Strip. The bottle itself was never the entire story. It was what the price represented — an industry increasingly willing to squeeze customers for every possible dollar.
Now the consequences are becoming harder to ignore.
