Business class was not originally lay-flat. What the NYTimes reference used by that Wikipedia article says is that El Al assumed the Concorde would take away most of the real first class flyers and all that they needed was basically something like domestic business class today.

Business class mostly started up as an offering for, well, business travelers who could give the appearance of being frugal relative to first class while still traveling comfortably. What's happened over time is a lot of dedicated first class seating has gone away and business class has been incrementally upgraded to something that's mostly much better than old-fashioned first class ever was.

> Relatively few people are really in a situation where the few hours in a comfortable plane are worth $$$$

Business class is where airlines make the bulk of their profits.

I wasn't clear. Yes. Lots of people will pay extra for business. I was saying I'm not sure how many of those will then spend 2x or more for a bit more speed when they're already comfortable.

ADDED: This article suggests lay-flat came in during the 1990s which sounds about right to me: https://thepointsguy.com/2017/05/evolution-of-business-class... I definitely remember flying business class transatlantic in the early 90s and it wasn't lay-flat.