I think the 800 credit and hotel offer might have gotten me off that plane. I've never seen offers that good for changing a flight. I personally feel the best resolution would be to just raise that offer until someone bit. United fucked up by letting people board that plane knowing it was overbooked, that was the second fuck up after overbooking although it is common for planes to overbook (I dont agree with it, but I think the overbooking in and of itself was not the real issue).
While I think I would be calm and just get off, at the same time, that guy causing the scene may have earned him a nice lawsuit so maybe holding your ground isn't such a bad thing.
From what I've read, it wasn't overbooked as in too many tickets sold. At the last minute, United decided to get 4 paying customers off the plane to fly 4 employees to the next city. Making a paying customer (a doctor on his way to see patients no less) leave so you can fly an employee seems like a really stupid move. Put the employees on a competing flight if you have to or offer more money. Delta paid a woman $11K to get off her flight a few months ago. Had United bumped that $800 up to $1200+, someone most likely would have bit. Now they're swimming in the shitty PR waters and lost more than that extra $400 within ten minutes of that video making its way onto the internet.
I don't think I would have gotten off. If I was on my way to the annual world finals in Vegas and you were going to force me to miss the first day because you couldn't manage your employees' schedules properly and had to give them my seat, I'd be absolutely livid.
The random selection thing seems kind of shitty to me too. What would have happened if they randomly selected a child, an elderly person, a decorated veteran, or a pregnant woman?