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Comment by hbosch | Hacker News Reader

The wording of this is weird (even if I get the point). Airlines don't sell you space, they sell you a seat too. If I pay for a seat, and it has a recline button on it, I'm entitled to use that button and recline my seat -- I really don't see any room for another interpretation.

I do always feel a little guilty by reclining. Especially with some of those seats that by reclining, the seatback media player is tilted just so that it's harder to watch. And on Amtrak one time, my wife reclined her seat too quickly and the woman behind us spilled her water on herself -- that was embarrassing for us all, honestly.

But the point stands. I can recline my seat, and you can recline yours, and that's the way it is.

For those of you that want to take a passive aggressive route, by the way, my father in law says if he really needs to use his laptop en route he will point his air con at the recliner in front of him until they sit up straight. Maybe try that.

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There is more to it than your entitlement.

Is the person behind you not entitled to comfort?

Your car is sold with a horn. Are you entitled to sit on it for 10 minutes at 3am in a residential area for no reason? Possibly. Should you? That’s the more important question when we live in a society.

Also if your father in law absolutely needs to use his laptop perhaps he should fly business class (I can’t speak to domestic services but internationally you’re guaranteed to be unaffected by others’ seats)

There’s a pretty big gap between “needs to work on flight” and “can afford business class”

Premium Economy bridges the gap.

When has there been any alluding to or promise of being able to work in economy? It always seemed best effort. Eg if your laptop was small enough, if you’re at a seat with power, if the person wasn’t reclining.

IMO you should not book economy with the expectation to work for any decent portion of it uninterrupted.

(Again this an EU/international view. I’ve not flown US domestic)

Using your car horn in that manner is illegal in most places, as it should be. Shouldn't you be more upset with the airline for designing and selling a product that is almost unusable because of how uncomfortable it is?

Are you entitled to deny another person their comfort and use of a service they have paid for? I don't understand this argument because it goes both ways. The airline is the only entity to blame.

> Shouldn't you be more upset with the airline for designing and selling a product that is almost unusable because of how uncomfortable it is?

Precisely. As the article/book author is correct to point out too. And this applies to so many products and services these days. We're conditioned to accept what's made available, because there's usually little we can do about it directly. So companies are free to engage in "value engineering", successively making every product asymptotically approach the border between "fit for purpose" and "fraudulent marketing".

The car horn is a safety feature that is designed to be used as a warning mechanism. It's a poor analogy to compare it to "comfort", which literally translates into the passenger in the back also reclining and reclaiming the same amount of space.

At the end of the day, the person paid for a seat and that seat comes with comfort features that they can use.

To reiterate, it's a poor analogy as no one is honking at you or keeping you from sleeping or waking you up or whatever else a random car horn would do to you at 3 am (at which point you should be calling the authorities because if you live in a civilized place, that ought to be illegal)

How does the fact that you bought a seat with a recline button give you the entitlement to cause discomfort or pain to the person behind?

If the seat came with a button that would deliver an electric shock to the person sitting behind, would you feel entitled to push it?

but the button is there for you to push if you so desire. The Airline has given you an option which you may or may not use.

Can you buy the right to hurt another person without their consent?

Who is hurting anyone here?

False analogy... but you know that already. One is a comfort feature, the other is a theoretical psychology test.

If it were merely a comfort feature it would not be controversial.

It's strictly a comfort issue. (for both parties, and the hind passenger can always comfort themselves the same way via reclining their chair too... not rocket science - pardon the sarcasm)

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