You lack imagination. Two customers with the same itinerary might be quoted different prices not because of capacity constraints but because the platform has inferred that one customer is willing to pay more than the other... that's extracting consumer surplus and converting it to supplier surplus.
I guess I don't really care. I'm price sensitive, and I have options. So its pretty easy for them to pick up I'm price sensitive as I often check a route, check back 5 minutes later and ghost. So they can infer I'm going to a cheaper competitor.
There are some people that are loyal and don't mind paying slightly more. Or don't want the overhead of having multiple apps. Let them pay more.
This is essentially the same thing as coupons and sales. The people that take the effort to find and clip coupons and plan their shopping accordingly pay less. I don't bother so I pay more. I'm fine with this.
What is the bigger problem? Some democratic principle of everyone pays the same?
In that case we get your preferred route. People traveling these routes as well have a notoriously poor credit rating. See? We will make you pay either way.
While the Puritan culture that pervades America is usually derided, one thing they did and do have is issues with is price discrimination. The price is the price, doesn't matter if you're rich/poor/black/white/man/woman. So while that may be somewhat true, it's not universally so.
It's fancy modern haggling... Where one party has almost infinitely more knowledge than the other, both about you and about every other person that might buy the good/service.
That imbalance is what people hate. It's part of why people hate car salesmen. And a large part of why people hate most salesmen.
