Originally Posted by
jsloan
The problem isn't a technical one; it's the additional inconvenience you cause for the passenger, who, 999 times out of 1000, will be able to be seated. IDBs are exceptionally rare, even among only those flights that are oversold. It's extremely uncommon for there to be nobody willing to be VDBed. (The number in the other thread is four per hundred thousand passengers).
This. The vast, vast majority of the time you'll be freaking out a passenger who isn't in any danger of not flying. Many oversales are handled at the gate before boarding anyway.