Originally Posted by ATOBTTR

How do you know they're upgrades? How do you know it's not people who did book together and got split up in IROPS?

People like you fail to understand that while you care significantly about your seat, you are very much a minority and many people out there see airplane seats as simply seats or have other priorities than seats. It doesn't make them or you wrong; it just means you have different opinions. I am part of the minority as well but at least I know it, and given the attitudes of people like you, I'm often thankful many of the views of this site represent a minority.

Sure I can have very particularly preferences if the options are available and sometimes those make a difference if someone asks me to switch and sometimes I put them aside and switch. For example, I prefer the aisle seat on the right side because I'm right handed and it means my drink is positioned for me to grab with my right hand. When I am selecting seats, I'll select an aisle seat on the right side. But it's not something I consider critical enough to turn down a seat swap request for an otherwise equivalent aisle seat. You as the seat holder do have the ultimate "authority" and if you don't want to swap for whatever reason, you don't, but what I find both sad and amusing is the attitude of how any other passenger should never dare ask for a seat swap to sit by a companion.