Spirit is one of, if not the most complained about US airline. Their business model is to charge bargain-basement fares, sometimes as little as $9 - $11 each way, and then charge a-la-carte for everything, and I mean everything else. If they could charge for each sheet of toilet paper in the lavatory they would.
That being said, but not in defense of their often poor customer service practices, their pricing is made very clear during the booking process. If you were unaware of all of the additional charges you might have to pay when you arrived at the airport then apparently you did not pay very close attention during the booking process. You were also offered an opportunity during the online booking process to pre-pay for your checked luggage and carry-ons which is why you may have arrived at the conclusion that others were being allowed to get away with not paying. It is probably because they pre-paid for all of their items when they booked online. (I believe there may even be an opportunity to pre-pay for baggage and preassigned seats during online check-in as well but as I have never actually flown Spirit I can only tell you what I have heard from other Spirit customers.)
Bottom line is you bought a ticket from Spirit to get a "cheap fare" and you got what you paid for. While I agree that their employees are probably some of the unfriendliest in the industry they are tasked with collecting as many fees as they can and when your bag protruded just a tiny bit over the bag sizer that gave them the green light to do so.
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