Enshittification

So the final thing that made Southwest a better option for flying at the lower cost end is finally gone.

• The best seat selection used to be free if you put in the effort. Thats gone because the "free" option is now at the back of the line with, with pay-to-win "A listers" extra fee, military members, "those needing special assistance", and even families board before everyone else no matter how fast you checked in 24 hours before. Even this is getting replaced with assigned seats in the next year or so with extra fees on better seat locations no doubt.

• two checked bags free also meant many people felt no need to try and drag a giant carry-on back into the cabin and fight for the meager bin space. Now with bag fees everyone is going to be skipping checked bags to try and keep the costs down.

• their rewards program sucks, but that was worth it for the seating and the bags

So they're now more expensive than the "low cost" airlines like Frontier, Spirit, and Allegiant with equal service offering.

Is there a name for the method of enshittification where they take away things you used to take for granted and try to sell them back to you?

It's bad even from the perspective of the system because even though they're growing GDP they aren't actually creating any new tangible value.

I flew a lot for the first 20-25 years of my life. My parents were civilians and their checks came from the Department of Defense. We moved a lot, all over the world, and flew within the US 1-3 times every year. Then I got busy and didn't fly even once for about 20 years. I thought that I knew how the system worked, but I was fucking floored with how much shittier the entire process has become.

You know, if they actually did something about the crazy wealth inequality, airlines (and just about every other fucking capitalist transaction in this fucked up country) wouldn't feel such a need to nickle and dime every last coin for the absolute least output.

They’ll nickel and dime us to death.