I'm not going to defend Gary. We're not friends. His post on discriminatory price offering is indeed absurd.

But for low-level elites like me, he's dead flat right that "free" upgrades would be a disaster: sure, they'd be free; it's just that I could never get one. Price controls produce scarcity, a subject on which I happen to be (through experience behind the Iron Curtain) a self-appointed expert. And before you say it, yes, I know prices are already de facto controlled and that there's consequently already scarcity; making upgrades free to all would just exacerbate the situation.

As for the merged FF program, I'll agree with the prior surmise that Gary's simply embargoed.