> Also price discrimination sounds a lot worse than what it really is?

I usually think of price discrimination as the first- or third-degree types (how they define them in the article), that is, charging people different amounts based on how much you think they are willing to or can pay, not on any differentiation of the product. That practice always sounded dirty and dishonest to me.

I wasn't aware that something like basic economy could be considered (second-degree, using their terminology) price discrimination; to me that's just offering a different product, with different features and different quality, at a different price. That honestly seems entirely reasonable to me; basic economy is just a different class of service, similar to how business class is different from economy class. I don't think of biz/first class as price discrimination; to me it's just selling a different, higher-quality product for a higher price.