In a recent New York Times column, Frank Bruni decries “the Extra Legroom Society”—his term for the increasing profusion of price levels in everything from plane rides to amusement parks. Here’s where Bruni and I agree: increasing economic inequality is bad. Here’s where we differ: an increased array of price levels is a bad thing. I can list four reasons why the trend towards offering multiple price levels is a positive development for those concerned about access and affordability:

1. It discourages waste. When services are available in multiple levels at different costs, people are encouraged to pay for only those services they actually need. Air travel is a perfect example: Baby Boomers often express nostalgia for the good old days when you got a hot meal on every flight, but preparing and serving hot meals was an enormously costly endeavor that helped keep ticket prices high. What airlines have realized, and passengers have grudgingly accepted, is that passengers would rather have the option to fly more cheaply and skip the meal—or even, in some cases, skip having a carry-on bag. Those passengers who really want the food, or who actually need that bag, can pay for them. Those who don’t can avoid wasting money and resources.

2. It increases accessibility. When I was in high school, my dad and I went to see a movie at the late great Roseville 4 discount movie theater just outside of St. Paul. Movies there were second-run, and admission was just $2—or a single buck on Tuesdays. When we got to our seats, Dad was appalled that the floors were dirty and sticky. “This is unacceptable!” he exclaimed. In fact, though, sticky floors are acceptable—for those who would prefer to pay just one or two dollars for something that cost many times that at a theater with clean floors. Having the Roseville 4 as an option allowed more people to see more movies more often than if there had only been first-run houses. The same thing goes for air travel, amusement park rides, and car service: when bare-bones, discount options are available, those services are available to people who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) pay the price they’d have to pay in a flat-fee situation.

3. It encourages competition. I’m the first to admit that market competition isn’t the best way to run everything. Education, health care, and public safety, for example, should be centralized for efficiency and effectiveness. In many fields, though, providing more options empowers consumers and keeps service providers on their toes. Bruni singles out the Uber car service app for criticism, seeming to argue that it encourages conspicuous consumption—but anyone who’s used Uber appreciates the gauntlet it drops for conventional cab services, which have often enjoyed near-monopolistic status while failing to incorporate the useful technological innovations Uber offers: one-click car-calling, GPS tracking, text-message communication, and no-touch, easy-tip financial transactions. If conventional cab companies aren’t going to offer those advantages, then yeah, they should be cheaper—and they’ll get cheaper as Uber changes the supply-demand equation for car service.

4. It makes inequality visible. Fundamentally, Bruni’s objection to the Extra Legroom Society is that it’s a bad look: no one likes seeing those rich bastards zip to the front of the line everyone else has to wait in, or be served pre-flight drinks in front of that thin curtain, or hop into their sleek black Ubers and be whisked away. Even the rich, if they have even a bit of shame or perspective, feel a little crummy about it. You know what, though? Inequality does exist, and it is a problem. In the Extra Legroom Society, you can clearly see who gets the legroom and who doesn’t—versus the standardized-legroom society, where you don’t see who doesn’t get the legroom because they’re not even on the plane. The inequality was always there, it was just less visible. Blaming the Extra Legroom Society for economic inequality is shooting the messenger.

– Jay Gabler