Yeah. Whole article feels a bit "Fastcompany makes $entireprofit from bullshit clickbait headlines". Some people would read the article with an accurate headline!
For people that don't want to be at the front of the queue, select their seats, eat airline food or use inflight wifi, the fact that some people pay a bit more to do it and subsidise their ticket costs is a bonus. And even some of the really customer hostile ancillary revenue streams like "Printing your boarding pass will be 50 dollars sir" has nothing to do with website dark patterns
For people that don't want to be at the front of the queue, select their seats, eat airline food or use inflight wifi, the fact that some people pay a bit more to do it and subsidise their ticket costs is a bonus. And even some of the really customer hostile ancillary revenue streams like "Printing your boarding pass will be 50 dollars sir" has nothing to do with website dark patterns