[saryant]

A few things about that:

1) The beer isn't free, the passenger paid for the entire can or used a 1K drink chit.

2) UA flight attendants are famous for making up rules and many try to avoid handing out entire cans of soda, and this one wasn't even a United flight attendant.

3) What on earth would that have to do with today's event?

[netizzio]

Whether or not the beer was free has absolutely nothing to do with this. It's not about the beer or diet coke, but about the blatant bigotry exhibited by an employee against a passenger on a United flight, as well as inexcusable behavior by another passenger.

Similarly, whether or not this was a United flight attendant is also of absolutely zero relevance. They may have technically been an employee of Shuttle America, but were part of the cabin crew and a representative of United on that flight, working under the United brand and wearing United uniforms. Therefore, when United releases a statement making no apology for abhorrent behavior exhibited by their representative, it reflects directly on them.

It may have nothing to do with this event, just as Chris Roberts tweeting that he hacked into the in-flight entertainment system may have nothing to do with this event. It's merely interesting that Wired explicitly ignored the actions of United as having any possible relationship to this event.