Passengers are choosing to be treated like cattle, by aggressively bargain hunting for the lowest available sticker price.

You have lots of options to get better service - economy plus, priority boarding, buying food onboard that you no longer get by default. And of course upgrading to business class.

All these things cost more and you could either pay for it by default on every ticket like in the old days, or you can purchase them separately. Consumer demand has overwhelmingly indicated a preference for the latter. Sure the airlines could lower their margins and drive down prices on these things for customers slightly. We'd be in the exact same situation now though without any cash reserves so I don't see how that would have helped.