The argument is over who owns the same few inches. YouGov put it to Americans days after a dispute involving a Knee Defender (a clamp that stops the seat in front from tilting back) diverted a flight, and the results suggest the split is not really about reclining. It is about when. In the same poll 55% called reclining acceptable on a daytime flight but 78% called it acceptable overnight, with only 9% objecting overnight. Asked which would inconvenience them more on a daytime flight, 43% said being unable to recline their own seat, against 34% who said someone reclining into them. More people resent losing the recline than resent receiving it. That gap explains why the fight never settles: most passengers are the aggrieved party in one direction and the offender in the other, often on the same trip. Americans did not accept the vigilante fix either, rejecting devices like the Knee Defender 65% to 16%. A decade later the headline number had not moved at all: 55% acceptable, 26% not.