Scuffles over seatback

Everyone has their favorite "idiot who pushed their seat back all the way back right after take-off and left it that way until right before landing" story. Or an "idiot hurled his seat back abruptly and broke my laptop screen" tale.  Or even a "I wanted to watch a movie on the seat-back screen, but the seat was leaned so far back and so close, I couldn't" #firstworldproblem . I don't know that I agree with the poster below (that seats should be locked upright, just like at the exit row), but it's tempting.

There are a bunch of factors at play here:

1. The airlines are bound and determined to stuff as many people onto a plane as possible. That's how they make their money. On the one hand, I don't blame them. On the other hand, it's made flying a progressively less pleasant experience, which probably doesn't help their business much. At any rate, if we weren't crammed into the minimal inches we're at, the guy leaning back in front of us wouldn't be nearly the issue.

2. As a corollary of the above, if passengers didn't demonstrate that they (mostly) value price above other factors, airlines wouldn't need to pack 'em in like sardines the way they do.

3. Some flyers are just plain rude how they recline their seat — abruptly, fully, persistently (even during a meal, which is rarely necessary and even more of an imposition). (I make a point, when I recline, to do it slowly, and generally only while I'm actually trying to sleep.)

4. Some flyers (see the comments) have to recline, even though the recline angle doesn't seem like much. Note that this is a small subset the overall flying-and-reclining public, but a real one. (Heck, on longer flights, when my backbone starts getting painful, reclining lets me shift some of the weight off it, so count me in that number.)

What's the answer? I don't have a good one, unfortunately, as the pressure is coming on the one hand from the margin-maximizing airlines (incented by penny-pinching passengers) and on the other hand from passengers who are plain rude and figure as long as they don't have to see the person behind them, they don't need to worry about how their actions affect others.