Ok. And this takes me back to the initial FP+ conversations of 2013. Legacy FP rewarded the rope droppers and FPP rewards the sleep-in folks. I agree for the arrive late group FPP is better.
For me, if I had paid for a park day, and that park opens at 8 AM. And I don’t set foot in it until 11 AM, I have just willingly given them three hours worth of my money for nothing in return. That goes against the core of my being. I will be there before it opens and I will stay until they kick me out. 
Yes. This is very true. I try not to take that into account, since TP folk are the exception not the rule. 
But I can guarantee that your standby wait is longer MOST OF THE TIME (depending of course on how crowded it is…but then, on less-crowded days, the FPP benefit becomes negligible). I’ve seen it played out. I’ve seen it computer modeled.
But we LIKE to believe it is saving us time. That’s really where the “benefit” is. Perception of benefit is more important to Disney than ACTUAL benefit.
My prime example, however, was actually watching the line for PPF while I was in standby. For every group of about 3 or 4 people they let in from the standby line, the FPP line had about 20-30 people to through. For the sake of simple math, let’s say that they let 30 people on the ride every minute. That means over the course of an hour, 1800 people get on the ride. Of those, about 1500 were via the FPP line. 300 from the standby.
Now, the argument goes that if not for FPP, then ALL of those people would have been in the standby line and so the same number of people would get through the line. But in practice, this isn’t the case because those people who got on via FPP would be in other lines instead as well as this line. Overall throughput never increases. It just shifts around. The same number of people are getting through all the rides at the same rate. The waiting just shifts around. Sometimes in exchange for a short wait here, you then add to the wait elsewhere.
BTW, I did have the caveat that there is some exception to this. Of course, those who know to get as many Same-day FPs as possible benefit. And also, those who bother pre-planning their FPPs benefit slightly due to other people who don’t bother to get FPPs.
I completely agree with you. I’m an early bird and I like getting up to be there as soon as humanly possible. But my kids are not humans, they’re young adults 
They. Hate. Getting. Up. And their dad is no better, that’s why he’s not a surgeon . I’ve been swimming against the current all of my adult life with this bunch!
So I threw in the towel last trip, and it was much better. This trip, I’m going all out with anything I can find to ensure they don’t have to get up early. I can prod one or two to get up early, I can’t win against all four of them. Although, I do also fully intend to leave without them on some mornings!
DH and I are cut from the same cloth. And the kids have been weaned that way.
Sleeping in on a Saturday at home is one thing, but on vacation we are all (as yet) commandos.
Well, that’s what my kids say they’re going to do, but I know better. Just last week one of them said, “Oh, I’ll get up for Disney!” Hah. We’ll see about that. There are plenty of EMH’s to test that vow, but I’ve scheduled NONE of them in my plans.
But the evening EMHs? They’ll close the place down
Mine are a little younger. Oldest is 18. And as off site folks it’s come with us or not at all. That said, I don’t have plans for Disney with them in the foreseeable future. 
This is, of course, true.
The ratio is 4:1 on slow days, 10:1 on busy days, per Backside of Magic who has a photo on their Facebook page of the CM instructions.
But what actually happens in practice is that in exchange for a short wait here, you now have time/make the decision/are forced to go back to your resort and swim/eat/shop. In the past, I might see 30 min. for Space and 30 min. for Splash and decide both are worth it. Now I get on Space via FP, see 60 min. for Splash and decide to go do something else instead. I take up less total ride throughput because I balked at the Splash mountain wait, but I probably actually feel better because I was never waiting in line.
So I win, Disney wins, and other guests (who use their FP’s, then wait in standby) also win.
Yes. Like get in line for a lesser ride (lengthening that line) or get in line for food (lengthening that line), etc. Now, I highly doubt people are exchanging their “gained time” for nothing that affects lines. A few people, perhaps, but I certainly doubt most.
And as long as you keep believing it, that’s fine. Because as I said, it isn’t whether you actually benefit that matters…it is if you THINK you are benefiting that matters.
Disney is a genius at this. I mean, take Haunted Mansion. The stretching room is nothing more than occupying you as you continue to wait in line. Only, you no longer THINK you are waiting in line. But you are!
Or is that part of the attraction? Where does the attraction start?
That is the genius of Disney. They made waiting in line PART of the attraction.
ETA: I should point out that in the Disneyland version, the stretching room actually IS an elevator, so it serves a purpose other than just to distract. But at the WDW version, the stretching room doesn’t actually go anywhere. It is just a passage from one area to another.
I consider the stretching room as part of the attraction. Not everything at Disney is a ride.
But when you’re timing your wait for TP, you don’t stop it in the stretching room, you stop it when you get in the doom buggy. You might enjoy the stretching room, I do too, but it’s not the actual attraction. It’s the equivalent of the honey wall or the play tent thing at Dumbo.
Yes…as I said…
Incidentally, the Rise of the Resistance ride is taking this a step further by making multiple experiences part of the wait. Some have reported that the ride will be upwards of 30 minutes. But that’s not quite accurate. The experience will be that long, with multiple stages. Kind of like the Haunted Mansion stretching room idea on steroids!
Come to think of it, Disney does this in a lot of places. Test Track has you design your car as part of the wait, for example. You watch a movie before the movie at MuppetVision 3D. Blah blah blah!
The stretching room is part of the story. Without it, you are missing something. We skipped it for my kids and went straight back to the buggies. It definitely felt different to me not seeing part of that attraction. Also, when we skipped it, there was not much of a line at the buggies. There are actually times where the loading station is empty while people finish up the stretching room.
I agree with you on the Muppets and Test Track.
I stopped my timer for Dinosaur when I went into the prep room for the video. Then I found out there was a whole line up on the other side of that. That would have added at least another 5 minutes to my time.
Which reminds me, the app should explain when we should stop the timers so things like my early stop don’t affect the data or I should be able to add time to that timer, as I might have forgotten to start it right away.
The stretching room was made part of the story so that you don’t have to “wait” as long. (All while you’re still waiting.) That’s what I mean by Disney being genius about it. It is part of the attraction, but it is really only so because it is a means to distract you from the fact you are waiting.
I thought it did, but you stop it when you enter the ride vehicle.