I think the common thread in airline pricing for the past decade has been that consumers want to pay the absolute least they can for every flight, disregarding almost everything else about the flight/plane.
I don't think that's a fair assessment when pretty much all upgrades are overpriced for what you get over the base service. And the markup is even more obscene once you discount bundled upgrades that you don't need. There isn't really an option to e.g. pay 10% more for 10% more seat pitch - and really the price increase should be less than 1:1 that if you keep the baggage allowance and food / other services the same.
There are things like Economy Plus on United. But, yes, in general Economy is priced for the bulk of people who want the absolute lowest fare--and once you have a class of seating that isn't the absolute lowest fare, there are a lot fewer constraints to how high it can be set.
