[dmalvarado]

To your last point, I have suspected this for a while. The mere fact that you care where you're seated is a signal that you're willing to pay for the change.

Airlines are going the way of ISPs. Monopolies that just don't care how annoyed they make you.

[jegutman]

Well, unlike ISPs they don't really make any money. They have many unnecessary regulatory burdens as well. I will say some of the regulation they face is from their actions. Industries that find it incapable to do the right thing in the absence of regulation are often the ones that end up the most heavily regulated and it doesn't really solve the problem either.

As for the seat. It's not about caring about your seat, because the seats on the flight that sticks out in my mind were pretty much indistinguishable. It was a 2x2 plane and there were like dozens of "empty" seats to choose from even though the flight was over-sold by one person. I refused to pay and then ended up being the one getting bumped (although in this case it worked out in my favor since I got bumped to the next morning and got paid 4x my fare). They do not make it obvious when you're purchasing that you do not have a seat either, they just "skip" that stage and don't give you one. Very misleading.