The Ridiculous Tech Fees You're Still Paying

Esther Schindler writes "None of us like to spend money (except on shiny new toys). But even we curmudgeons can understand that companies need to charge for things that cost them money; and profit-making is at the heart of our economy. Still, several charges appear on our bills that can drive even the most complacent techie into a screaming fit. How did this advertised price turn into that much on the final bill? Why are they charging for it in the first place? Herewith, fees that make no sense at all — and yet we still fork over money for them. For example: 'While Internet access is free in coffee shops, some public transit, and even campsites, as of 2009 15% of hotels charged guests for the privilege of checking their e-mail and catching up on watching cat videos. Oddly, budget and midscale hotel chains are more likely to offer free Wi-Fi, while luxurious hotels — already costing the traveler more — regularly ding us.'"

Comments

Internet costs in Australia

[Smiddi]

Internet costs in Australia. Its not uncommon to pay around $70/month for ADSL 1 speeds (1.5Mbps).

Re:Internet costs in Australia

[Albanach]

Do you know anything about Australia? Do you realize that a huge part of the country is essentially desert and uninhabited. Your population density stats mean little.

Look at a state, like Victoria, with a population density of 63/sq mile. That would put it in the middle of the US states, somewhere around Mississippi. Certainly it's no new york city, but neither is it Alaska.

Somewhere with that sort of population should easily be able to support multiple ISPs and have faster and cheaper internet service than that mentioned by the OP. Of course OP may live in the middle of Western Australia, in which case the 1.5 Mbit for $70 is probably a bargain.

Re:Economics 101

[M. Baranczak]

$9.99? If you went to Reno (or Vegas) and only got ripped off for $9.99 per day, then you've done better than most people.

Re:Economics 101

[rockout]

Your comments on this matter are a good explanation of why you don't own a restaurant or deli.

Re:most places in las vegas have forced resort fee

[Teancum]

I found the best place for WiFi in Las Vegas was the municipal public library. You need to go out of your way to find it, but the librarians were pretty decent about helping you get hooked up if you were courteous and reasonable. It sure as hell beat trying to jerk around with the hotel management and the bandwidth was a hell of a lot better too. If you wanted to even bother, all you need to do is sit in you (presumably rental) car with your laptop or go inside and they even had outlets... or you could get onto terminals in the library.

An added bonus by bringing your own equipment is that you essentially had no real time limit either.

By far and away the worst places were the resort hotels, but even the budget motels are a pain in the rear.

Don't even get me started with "roaming fees" for cell phones. Las Vegas is a death trap for most cell phone carriers. I purposely bought a throw-away cell phone at Wal-Mart with pre-paid minutes explicitly for calling from Vegas on the last time I was there. A buddy of mine brought in an AT&T cell phone, and ended up with a $500 cell phone bill before he left after just a few days in that city. His typical cell phone bill was usually about $40/month. Reno is almost as bad as Vegas too. By using the throw away cell phone, I only had to pay $50, including the brand-new cell phone and I even had minutes left over after the trip. It is just one of those "buyer beware" kind of things.

Re:Economics 101

[Tom]

While this is true, I think the author was pointing out one of the 'flaws' of capitalism; Technology and infrastructure makes offering such amenities a very cheap proposition. And yet, you wind up paying through the nose for them in certain situations;

What makes you think that's a flaw, and not a feature?

It is basically a misrepresentation of the true cost of the good or service being provided.

Ah, you are thinking free market and capitalism are the same thing. Yes, the rest of your comment pretty much indicates that as well. Well, time to wake up and realize that they aren't.

Capitalism simply means that the means to production are in the hands of private entities (companies or individuals), in contrast to ownership by cooperatives, the state, or the nobility.

The Free Market theory is about how trade and exchange of goods happen. Nothing in the theory requires the buyers or sellers to be capitalists. You could easily have socialist collectives exchanging goods between them on a free market, for example.

A true free market system works best when all the agents have equal access to the data needed to make informed decisions;

Wrong. It seems to be a detail, but it is one of the most important ones: A free market doesn't work "best" under this condition, it is a precondition. If you do not have total information, you do not have a free market, period. Which, yes, means each and every single market in the real world is not a free market, but an approximation.

That's not just semantics. When dealing with the real world, you should never forget that the conclusions from the free market theory may or may not apply.