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

[Anonymous Coward]

Very rare to see it free anywhere in Australia/New Zealand. I was very surprised to find free wifi access in Sydney airport last time I passed through.

Re:Internet costs in Australia

[mjwx]

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

I see you're on Telstra.

Re:Internet costs in Australia

[Anonymous Coward]

Many (although not all) McDonalds / Starbucks / a few other food/drink chains around AU give free wifi.

As for why AU internet costs $40-$100 a month (depending on ISP and how much 'data' you get per month) - it's simply to do with international data rates and the fact there's only a dozen or so international pipes going from AU to other countries, and the fact the vast majority of your data is going to be to/from the US or EU.

You'll notice almost every time you get a free increase in your monthly data quota (likely), or a decrease in your cost (unlikely) - it's roughly a few weeks/months after the news of an international cable having undergone an upgrade, (much rarer) a new international cable having come up, or alternatively a similar cable coming up between a country AU connects to and the US/EU (which indirectly reduces the cost of your data over that set of pipes).

See: http://www.cablemap.info/

Re:Internet costs in Australia

[Anonymous Coward]

That's actually a load of nonsense - the figures you are quoting is the average across the country. Telco deployments are not based on these average figures, which is why there is actually no internet provided in the middle of the Simpson desert despite the statistic telling us there are 2.8 potential customers every square km. Serving a town or a CBD environment is not that different from place to place, although there are extremes even within the sanitised figures. The vast majority of Australians live in urban areas, ie suburbs, the customer density of Australian suburbs doesn't differ that much from UK suburbs, or US suburbs.

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:Internet costs in Australia

[ChunderDownunder]

Yep and the government hoodwinked the majority of the population as an election stunt that we don't need no NBN...

Re:Internet costs in Australia

[gl4ss]

..yeah? at least you get that for a month.

this is about paying that for 2 days at a place where you already pay 600 for staying there for two days.

oh and why do expensive hotels charge for internet while budget hotels don't? well budget hotels don't assume their clients to be loaded with cash and people choose budget hotels for their internet..

Re:Internet costs in Australia

[rtb61]

That is a propaganda lie. Proof is easy, these following infrastructure items all cost more than communications infrastructure; roads, gas services, power services, sewerage services and storm water services. All of the cost more to build and more to maintain. Funnily enough not one of them in metropolitan areas is subject to population density. When it comes to linking cities of course roads cost way and above the cost of putting a cable in the ground.

Reality is, countries with substantive infrastructure also have one other burden, incumbent telecommunications firms run by psychopaths who routinely lie, deceive and misrepresent reality in order to generate greater profits. Lies to keep rotting copper profitable, lies to prevent self publishing and attempt to monopoly publishers, lies to restrict bandwidth in order to be able to charge more for it, lies to prevent governments working around that insane greed in order to create what is becoming an essential broadband service.

Re:Internet costs in Australia

[marka63]

McDonalds' free WiFi basically doesn't work in Australia. Just about every time I've tried it times out talking to the authorisation server and if you succeed in getting authorisation there is no bandwidth to speak of.

Re:Internet costs in Australia

[PopeRatzo]

I don't know about Australia, but telcos get such enormous public subsidies, plus the right to run virtual monopolies (at most 2 or 3 companies in the sector) over here in the States.

This is one of the things that's ultimately going to force innovation toward other kinds of networks (mesh, for example). There aren't that many private businesses that can be openly hostile to their customers and can be universally hated by all their customers and still make enormous profits year after year.

Re:Internet costs in Australia

[citizenr]

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.

Do you know anything about anything? Iceland has same population density, but above 90% internet penetration, not to mention average speed is twice of Australia.

But hey, keep building failed NBN with data caps on INTERNAL TRAFFIC.

Re:Internet costs in Australia

[__aaltlg1547]

Just so you know, noplace else in the United States wants to be considered as similar to Mississippi.

Re:Internet costs in Australia

[BeTeK]

Well in Finland we have 17 people per km2 and about everywhere you can get 100/5 mbit cable for 40 eur per month. I pay 20 eur per month for 100/10 mbit fibre.

Re:Internet costs in Australia

[Swave An deBwoner]

According to this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City New York City has a population density of greater than 10,000/km**2 yet I pay $40/month for "naked" DSL with nominal bandwidth of about 7Mbps (Verizon) and $50/month for Clear Internet with a nominal bandwidth of about 3Mbps.

So, just sayin', I don't think your relation scales exactly the way you think it does.

Re:Internet costs in Australia

[MickLinux]

No,no. Greed scales.

Re:Internet costs in Australia

[ozbon]

And Iceland (103,000 sq km) is just over 1% of the size of Australia ( 7,741,220 sq km) - even bearing in mind that both have uninhabitable regions in the middle of them. Also I think Iceland is part of the main transocean lines between America and Europe, so has greater access to bandwidth anyway. All told, I'd guess that the costs of installing infrastructure, intra-city comms etc. are costlier/more problematic in Australia than in Iceland.

Re:Internet costs in Australia

[Charliemopps]

I said PROFITABILITY scales with density. Your ISP charges what it thinks you'll pay. $40. If there are 5000 people within the reach of a given DSA, that's a VERY profitable area. On the other hand I know my company has exchanges with as few as 12 people within reach... there's even 1 that has a single customer (due to reasons beyond me) How interested do you think the ISP is in spending several million dollars upgrading that equipment?

This is very basic math. Fiber changes a lot, but it's also very expensive to instal.

Re:Internet costs in Australia

[camperdave]

Population density isn't a good metric, at least in the people-per-square-unit format, because it doesn't tell you how dispersed the population really is. Consider two islands with identical area, and identical populations. On one island, the people spread out across the entire island; on the other, they cluster into a single village by the lagoon. Mathematically, they have the same population density, but it's going to be far easier to provision the second island.

Re:Internet costs in Australia

[AmiMoJo]

Sounds like you need to either live in the flat above McDonalds or buy a really, really big antenna.

Re:Internet costs in Australia

[gl4ss]

iceland isn't a good example. nor is quoting population densities when in both countries most people live in areas of dense population - iceland being more extreme having just one single big city. so how come broadband in cities in australia is expensive?

but how about siberia and finland? bb prices are not as fucked up as australia.

or hell, how about just NZ? also I don't see how it's more expensive to put cabling to ground in australia than in finland or iceland(per population! not the total expense per population! since that scales! just like voluntary vote counters should scale negating the need for automated vote counting....), since you can do that work year round with no problems and or just leave it overground, all things being much simpler when you don't have proper hardcore seasons.

anyhow, the thing to look at would be are the australian telecoms stupidly profitable or do they have stupid amounts of laborers.

Re: Internet costs in Australia

[AvitarX]

Gas is definitely cheaper where population density is higher. Though once the density gets too high the infrastructure cost of having a station outweighs savings of density. Also past a certain density gas is used by less people, lowering the effective population density some.

Re:Internet costs in Australia

[Somebody Is Using My]

McDonalds' free WiFi basically doesn't work in Australia. Just about every time I've tried it times out talking to the authorisation server and if you succeed in getting authorisation there is no bandwidth to speak of.

In my experience, it's not much different in the US. McDonalds has the worst free WiFi. You can reach the Internet, but it feels like it's sub-dialup speeds. Download speeds measured in bytes per second are common. I've tried to connect in four or five "restaurants" and it was always the same, regardless of how many customers were in the store.

Starbucks and other stores were never speedy, but at least they were usable.

Best free wifi I ever had was in a hospital cafeteria, actually. 20MBps and a solid connection. I had a friend recovering from surgery who was thrilled at how often I came visiting; I hadn't the heart to tell her it wasn't entirely due to my concern for her. ;-)

Re:Internet costs in Australia

[frank_adrian314159]

Lies to keep rotting copper profitable...

No, now... Let's not resort to hyperbole. Copper doesn't rot, it oxidizes. Which, of course, leads to brittleness and breakage, as well as lower bandwidth.

That being said, the "Lies" portion of your statement is totally correct.

Re:Internet costs in Australia

[QRDeNameland]

OK, then explain Canada. Very similar to Australia demographically...lots of land, with 90% of the population living on something like 5% of the land. I live in a relatively out-of-the-way part of BC, and I get rock solid 25Mbps down, 5Mbps up for less that $70/month. Many of my friends in densely populated parts of the US can't get that.

Re:Internet costs in Australia

[CCarrot]

OK, then explain Canada. Very similar to Australia demographically...lots of land, with 90% of the population living on something like 5% of the land. I live in a relatively out-of-the-way part of BC, and I get rock solid 25Mbps down, 5Mbps up for less that $70/month. Many of my friends in densely populated parts of the US can't get that.

Simple. We piggyback on the connectivity that the US has built up. It's a heck of a lot cheaper to run trunk lines over land than it is over oceans...this added to the fact that "an estimated 75% of Canadians live within 161 km (100 miles) of the U.S. border" adds up to (theoretically) very low cost-per-bit data rates for us Canucks, even in the more remote areas. The fact that we generally have less people per square km competing for the same local tubes as compared to the U.S. doesn't hurt, either.

This map illustrates the undersea cable situation pretty well, despite being a couple of years out of date.

Re:Internet costs in Australia

[hobarrera]

Interesting. Those prices are way higher than in Argentina, though free decent internet is rare. Free internet is usually is no more than 2 or 3 KB/s tops.
Anyway, I expected Australia to be better of than us, communications-wise.

Economics 101

[Stormy Dragon]

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.'"

This isn't odd at all. People staying at budget and midscale hotel chains are more price sensitive, so they're going to not come to your hotel if you don't have free wifi. The people staying a luxury hotels are not as price sensitive and are more likely to be worried about other things beside a charge for internet access when selecting a hotel.

Re:Economics 101

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite true. P("Charge user for Wifi") ~= P("Guest with Govt/Corp Expense Acct"). My manager doesn't even give Wifi expenses a second glance when I submit my expenses.

Re:Economics 101

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently stayed at one of the Casino/Resort Hotels in Reno and found the "Free WiFi" was only
good for an hour. If I wanted it longer than that, it was $9.99/day !!!

Funny that the Free Wifi is what convinced me to stay there in the first place.

So I guess their advertising works.....but only ONCE

Re:Economics 101

[Bite The Pillow]

Bzzt. While that seems intuitive, it is too simple.

Looking at which places charge, it is usually the ones frequented by business travel. Near a corporate office, convention center, or similar.

Exceptions exist, but in my travel that has been 100% true.

Re:Economics 101

[Austrian Anarchy]

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.'"

This isn't odd at all. People staying at budget and midscale hotel chains are more price sensitive, so they're going to not come to your hotel if you don't have free wifi. The people staying a luxury hotels are not as price sensitive and are more likely to be worried about other things beside a charge for internet access when selecting a hotel.

Works the same other places too. Since two Paneras* in a row were "unable" to connect me to the Internet for hours on end (spare me the peak hours jazz, even then you are supposed to get 1/2 hr. and I was able to connect to other nearby networks) I stick to Starbucks when I want to work away from the house. What I drink is nearly the same price either place and the SBX staff in these parts usually give you a heads up if they are having trouble.

Beware the Church of Panera. When I mentioned this issue on Facebook, a gaggle of them cackled that it is "free" and should not be complained about, ever. I really don't understand those people.

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

[girlintraining]

This isn't odd at all. People staying at budget and midscale hotel chains are more price sensitive, so they're going to not come to your hotel if you don't have free wifi. The people staying a luxury hotels are not as price sensitive and are more likely to be worried about other things beside a charge for internet access when selecting a hotel.

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; It is basically a misrepresentation of the true cost of the good or service being provided. They can say the hotel room with everything a "less price sensitive" customer is looking for is offered at a competitive room rate, but the room rate quoted, and which is being compared against with other providers, is not the actual cost you will pay for it. This makes straight comparisons between different offerings difficult; It does not encourage a truly competitive marketplace, because it hides costs. It's sortof like the old axiom "Give away the razor, charge for the blades", except in this case, you can only see the cost of the razor, not the blades.

This is fundamentally anti-competitive and is not a truly 'free' marketplace, because price comparison is made very difficult in an effort to trap the less savvy agent. While "caveat emptor" may be a nice rebuttal in theory, in practice those uttering this phrase are making a far-reaching assumption: That the buyer is capable of being aware. Uttering these words is like saying "Oh, there's a minefield over there" after you've already stepped on a mine. If one truly supports the free market, then such predatory pricing tactics cannot be endorsed.

A true free market system works best when all the agents have equal access to the data needed to make informed decisions; This ensures true competition, which is the driver of innovation. By obscuring these details and attaching hidden fees, it contributes to market inefficiency and hinders competition -- you can't be sure what you're paying for is at a competitive price, and thus, competition is less prevalent. Less competition means greater inefficiency. It means less trade. Those dollars aren't working as hard, and while it may benefit the individual vendors participating in such deception, it harms the entire economy.

Re:Economics 101

[Teun]

Sounds like the place where you want to spoof your MAC address.

Re:Economics 101

[Opportunist]

This. What else would it be?

If you're willing to pay for something, you will be charged for it. Unless someone offers the same for free AND this offer makes you go to him instead of your original choice, nothing will change.

I, for one, was amazed about the free soda refill policy in many restaurants in the US. I can almost see how this came to existence. Some fast food chain did it as an ad stunt, and people flocked there, so everyone had to follow suit, and eventually even "normal" restaurants "had" to do it to attract customers. And suddenly everyone does it.

Think you'd get a free refill anywhere if it wasn't for someone starting to offer it AND being successful with it?

Same here. Any kind of service will only become the norm if it attracts customers.

Re:Economics 101

[PPH]

Free WiFi. Just connect, often to an unsecured AP. At most, there's a single key for all guests.

Paid WiFi. Supposedly, they have to have a way to track your usage to get the charges straight. So you get your own login. Now they know who is who and, at a minimum, what services you are contacting (even for encrypted connections). For high rollers, that is valuable information to have. It could be used for anything from marketing to industrial espionage.

Re:Economics 101

[mythosaz]

Most of the access points at the casino hotels (and I've stayed at plenty) require a room number and a last name.

Change your MAC all you want, but much better to figure out the names of your neighbors.

Re:Economics 101

[egranlund]

Not to mention Panera internet (at least for me) is very slow compared to Starbucks and Panera also blocks VPN.

Re:Economics 101

[cascadingstylesheet]

Eh, yes and no.

Customers who aren't price sensitive, aren't, well, price sensitive. If they cared enough, they'd gather the information. But the extra ding just doesn't make the extra information gathering worth it to them.

Nobody has perfect information. We all make trade offs.

Re:Economics 101

[antifoidulus]

This isn't odd at all. People staying at budget and midscale hotel chains are more price sensitive, so they're going to not come to your hotel if you don't have free wifi. The people staying a luxury hotels are not as price sensitive and are more likely to be worried about other things beside a charge for internet access when selecting a hotel.

You also have to look at who is footing the bill. At a lot of business hotels everything is on the expense account or corporate card, people won't really care what they have to pay as someone else is paying it(and it's often all on one bill).

Re:Economics 101

[dgatwood]

People staying at budget and midscale hotel chains are more price sensitive, so they're going to not come to your hotel if you don't have free wifi. The people staying a luxury hotels are not as price sensitive and are more likely to be worried about other things beside a charge for internet access when selecting a hotel.

Put a bit more cynically, those high-priced hotels cater to people who have no concept of the value of money, and show their contempt for their customers' financial skills at every possible opportunity. The problem is, a lot of those folks end up at those hotels because some travel agency booked them there in a block along with the rest of their tour group. Those folks are pretty unhappy about it.

These days, I just make sure I have enough of a data allowance on my phone so that I don't have to care about the Internet service at hotels, under the assumption that half of them will want to extort money for Internet service and half of the remaining hotels won't have service that actually works. It really doesn't make sense to spend ten bucks per day for Internet service on a ten-day trip when you could spend ten or fifteen bucks for 30 days and a gigabyte of cellular data.

Re:Economics 101

[mcgrew]

Since two Paneras* in a row were "unable" to connect me to the Internet for hours on end (spare me the peak hours jazz, even then you are supposed to get 1/2 hr. and I was able to connect to other nearby networks) I stick to Starbucks when I want to work away from the house.

Starbucks? Hell, I go to McDonalds, a buck for a coffee (that's before my geezer discount). OK, not really, I go to a a redneck bar in the ghetto whose motto is "Got Guts?" ($1.25 drafts) Caddycorner from an Outlaws motorcycle club headquarters. I wrote most of Nobots there (out soon, need cover art and it's done).

WiFi? I know the owner and have the password.

You guys need to learn how to stop wasting money. I need to get the password to George Ranks from them, I think I'm in range here...

Re:Economics 101

[SternisheFan]

The cost of the syrup in a soda is about 5 cents, so considering the soda cost you $2, they're not losing anything by giving you a free refill. It keeps you in the store where you're more likely to buy something else.

Re:Economics 101

[T-Bone-T]

You want misrepresentation of cost? Try Sweet Tea at just about any deli. It costs me about $.25/gallon to make it at home without a bulk discount but delis will often sell 16-20 oz for almost $2. They could charge less, but why would they? People are already buying gallons of it for at least 4000% more than cost and very happy about it.

Re:Economics 101

[demonlapin]

Internet is free at hotels catering to salesmen who pay their own way and at high end luxury hotels. Hotels catering to people on expense accounts charge.

Re:Economics 101

[demonlapin]

A fast food chain probably did it as soon as they realized it takes more money to pay your employee to make drinks than you lose due to the free refills.

Re:Economics 101

[Anonymous Coward]

That's okay because my name is Desk...Front Desk.

Re:Economics 101

[Waffle Iron]

Exactly. Some genius at a corporate HQ figured out that at any given moment, tens of thousands of people are standing around waiting for their fast food orders to come up. This represented a vast untapped pool of willing and free labor.

If you look at the soda fountains of a large restaurant at a busy time, it often looks like it would easily take two dedicated employees to just to fill drinks at the rate that customers are filling their own. Maybe even more would be required to keep track of all the drinks and match them to orders. That's a lot of extra staffing.

Re:Economics 101

[girlintraining]

Customers who aren't price sensitive, aren't, well, price sensitive.

"Hey, I'm so rich I don't care how much anything costs!"
-- Said no rich person. Ever.

Re:Economics 101

[girlintraining]

People are already buying gallons of it for at least 4000% more than cost and very happy about it.

That would be because the food cost only makes up a small fraction of the total cost on a bill for dining out. You're paying for the labor to make that tea, the labor to take that order, the labor to fill that order, the labor to clean up your table when you're done. You're paying for the electricity and utilities of that location. You're paying for government licensure costs.

Oh, and their wifi is free.

Re:Economics 101

[anubi]

I have noticed a lot of companies are using verbal trickery in their business dealings to pull a fast one on their customer.

Remember in the old algebra classes we took, we were given math equations to reduce to the simplest form?

These days, the first thing I do when evaluating a business "deal" is see if I can reduce it to the form:

"Up to ( what the business will provide ) for only ( price* )" followed by "* other charges may apply"

This verbiage makes sure there is a legal obligation in place forcing the customer to pay whatever the business asks, but lets them off the hook for any commitment to the customer. That part is left as "up to".

This seems to be the most common verbiage used today by sleazeball businesses trying to pull a fast one. Even many well-known businesses will pull this one on their customers. Surprising to me, most people still haven't caught on and call them on it.

One has to be very careful these days of dealing with a business. While most are on the level, there are a few which leave a trails of distrust with their shady legal maneuverings. The man with a pen can cause you far more grief than the man with the knife or gun. Most of the men using knife or gun won't use it - but the man who gets you to sign something owns you.

Re:Economics 101

[JoeMerchant]

I always cringed when checking into "fancy" hotels back in the day for conferences and such. $12 charges to connect the room phone for a local call....

Re:Economics 101

[clarkkent09]

Mostly bullshit. With the amount of information you can get easily these days it's your own fault if you get caught by some unexpected charge. One of the first things I look for when booking a hotel is the free parking/free internet/"resort fee" situation and it is usually easy enough with reviews on travelocity, expedia and other travel sites, plus yelp, google etc. With an extremely complex transaction like real estate, I think there is a place for regulation to standardize the format of the information presented to the parties but "failure of capitalism" because of some extra charges when booking a hotel, give me a break. What about a failure of government in that in the USA a cell phone bill is on average 17% larger than advertised because of taxes and that after all these years of filling income taxes I still can not understand a damn thing about the illogical, confusing mess that is the US tax code and need help of a very expensive professional each time.

Re:Economics 101

[Anonymous Coward]

> one of the 'flaws' of capitalism; .... a misrepresentation of the true cost of the good or service being provided.

Wait, I thought "all that the traffic will bear" was the fundamental axiom of highly personalized pricing.
Aren't they supposed to extract the maximum possible amount out of you, to serve their stockholders?

If they're talking about serving you -- that's a cookbook.

Re:Economics 101

[Pubstar]

It's not like costs them much. The cup is usually more expensive than the soda.

Re:Economics 101

[rockout]

That's an oversimplification.

"Hey, I'm so rich, that I don't care about a $9.95 internet fee tacked onto my hotel bill per night" -- said many (not all, granted) rich people, every day.

And that's why high-end hotels don't offer free wifi.

Re:Economics 101

[rockout]

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

Re:Economics 101

[girlintraining]

"Hey, I'm so rich, that I don't care about a $9.95 internet fee tacked onto my hotel bill per night" -- said many (not all, granted) rich people, every day.

They'd care if they knew they could go across the street and save $10 a night... or about 10-15%. But they don't, so they can't.

And that's why high-end hotels don't offer free wifi.

Re:Economics 101

[rockout]

That's his point exactly, and a good illustration of why high-end hotels charge for internet while others don't. You're not looking at it from a corporate viewpoint - it's irrelevant what the soda costs to make. If people are willing to pay $2 per glass, then the corporate mindset is "We're losing money if we don't charge $2 per glass." It was ONLY when some places started offering free refills (because they realized it "keeps you in the store where you're more likely to buy something else") that everyone started offering free refills on soda, because of the competition. Until then, it wasn't a question of what that soda cost to make; it was merely a question of maximizing profit.

If one semi-high-end hotel chain, say, maybe, Hilton, starts offering free wifi to all customers, then you'll see others follow suit. Until then, they'll all charge, only because the majority of their customers are willing to pay it, or are on corporate stays that pay for their internet charges anyway.

Re:Economics 101

[T-Bone-T]

Somebody mod this guy "informative". He clearly knows what he's talking about.

Re:Economics 101

[girlintraining]

Of course they are paying for all of that stuff, but the tea is almost pure profit

Well, when you cut out all the costs, then yeah, it's "pure profit". In other news, you have no point. In the restaurant business, food costs make up anywhere from 9--23% of total costs. Note that transport is included in that. To put this in perspective, the primary thing that a restaurant does -- serve food, makes up about the same percentage as the hotels are charging for an amenity.

Do you get it yet, or do you feel a need to make another non-point?

Re:Economics 101

[bws111]

What you are doing is what is generally derided as 'hollywood accounting' - moving costs and profits around to make certain areas of the business look profitable or not.

Re:Economics 101

[T-Bone-T]

Ok, let's throw in some costs. Some quick calculations(labor, price of water, cost to heat the water, etc) brought it from 4000% profit to 2000%. Still insane profit.

Re:Economics 101

[bws111]

OK, by your logic a store that sells nothing but tea should be hugely profitable, right? OK, lets see if that is correct.

Let;s say you run a small store selling nothing but that hugely profitable tea. You only pay minimum wage ($8.50 in NY), only ever have 1 employee working at a time, are open 12 hours a day, and pay $2000/month in rent (not at all unreasonable for retail space). So, your wages are $8.50x12x30 = $3060/month, plus your $2K rent, is $5060 in expenses each month (ignoring little details such as utilities, taxes, bookkeeping, etc). Now, let's say you are charging the 'outrageous' amount of $2.00 for a tea. You need to sell, on average, (5060/2)/30 = 84 teas a day, or one every 8.5 minutes of every day, to break even. And that is ignoring the costs of ingredients and all of the other expenses that go with running a business. And again, that is JUST to break even. But you claim you can make 2000% 'insane' profit. Well, to get to your 2000% insane profit, you would need to be selling 20x as much tea, 1680 teas every day, or a tea every 25 seconds of every day. With ONE employee. That doesn't leave much time for that employee to stock shelves or anything, does it? Better hire another employee to help out. Uh-oh, your expenses just went up to $8120/month. To make your 'insane' 2000% profit you now need to sell 2706 teas every day.

Re:Economics 101

[laxr5rs]

My thoughts exactly. There are reasons that the big guys are big, and one is monetization of all cost.

Re:Economics 101

[i.r.id10t]

mac address randomizer :)

Re:Economics 101

[T-Bone-T]

I didn't think I'd have to say this, but, a 2000% profit of $1.99 is still only $1.99. If your Sweet tea is popular, it is basically a license to print money but you can ony print small bills. It brings in decent money but nobody is, certainly not I, claiming that it can stand alone.

Re:Economics 101

[i.r.id10t]

Sometimes both are free :)

Convienence store I worked at had a deal with Coke... the coke cooler section was more central, and the soda machine was Coke. Pepsi was off in the corner, beer in the opposite corner. For the prime shelving for the bottles/cans, Coke gave them the fountain machine, the syrup, and the cups.

Re:Economics 101

[ciotog]

Case in point: the telecom company I work for has an "unlimited" product offering - that's capped at 2000 minutes/month. According to marketing, "unlimited" means you're not limited to any time of day or day of the week.

Re:Economics 101

[Rob the Bold]

This isn't odd at all. People staying at budget and midscale hotel chains are more price sensitive, so they're going to not come to your hotel if you don't have free wifi. The people staying a luxury hotels are not as price sensitive and are more likely to be worried about other things beside a charge for internet access when selecting a hotel.

Weird thing is, the nicer hotels aren't necessarily that much pricier than the cheap ones. For the best of both worlds, stay at a fancy hotel near the Super 8 and leach the economy WiFi. Sometimes you can't help but do that, signal in the better hotels can be pretty crappy. Absorbed by the pillow mints or something.

Seriously, though. The pillow itself doesn't cost that much more at the Clarion than the Econolodge*, it's the extras that get you.

*Two brands owned by the same parent company, but at opposite ends of the scale.

Re:Economics 101

[Registered Coward v2]

"Hey, I'm so rich, that I don't care about a $9.95 internet fee tacked onto my hotel bill per night" -- said many (not all, granted) rich people, every day.

They'd care if they knew they could go across the street and save $10 a night... or about 10-15%. But they don't, so they can't.

And that's why high-end hotels don't offer free wifi.

Actually, most do - if you are a reasonably frequent guest. Loyalty programs are structured to encourage and reward repeat customers and identify the ones who drive profit and try to ensure they remain loyal customers. It's another way to drive loyalty by offering a tangible savings, which has little marginal cost for the hotel. In the end, many customers don't care about saving the $10 because they don't pay it anyway.

Re:Economics 101

[Registered Coward v2]

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; It is basically a misrepresentation of the true cost of the good or service being provided. They can say the hotel room with everything a "less price sensitive" customer is looking for is offered at a competitive room rate, but the room rate quoted, and which is being compared against with other providers, is not the actual cost you will pay for it. This makes straight comparisons between different offerings difficult; It does not encourage a truly competitive marketplace, because it hides costs. It's sortof like the old axiom "Give away the razor, charge for the blades", except in this case, you can only see the cost of the razor, not the blades.

Transaction and search costs are a recognized component of a free market; a free market does not imply those will be zero. Rather, at some point the cost of determining prices exceeds the saving and people no longer seek additional information.

This is fundamentally anti-competitive and is not a truly 'free' marketplace, because price comparison is made very difficult in an effort to trap the less savvy agent. While "caveat emptor" may be a nice rebuttal in theory, in practice those uttering this phrase are making a far-reaching assumption: That the buyer is capable of being aware. Uttering these words is like saying "Oh, there's a minefield over there" after you've already stepped on a mine. If one truly supports the free market, then such predatory pricing tactics cannot be endorsed.

A la carte vs bundled pricing is not predatory pricing. Each is simply a way to price to attempt to reach as many customers as possible. Some may prefer to buy a la carte because they do not need internet access and hence do not want it included in the rates; others prefer a one price bundle and so some companies offer it.

A true free market system works best when all the agents have equal access to the data needed to make informed decisions; This ensures true competition, which is the driver of innovation. By obscuring these details and attaching hidden fees, it contributes to market inefficiency and hinders competition -- you can't be sure what you're paying for is at a competitive price, and thus, competition is less prevalent. Less competition means greater inefficiency. It means less trade. Those dollars aren't working as hard, and while it may benefit the individual vendors participating in such deception, it harms the entire economy.

Clearly greater information transparency improves market efficiency but full transparency is not needed for a functioning free market. Even in a free market companies do not just compete on price because if price alone is the differentiator then you are in a commodity market with no pricing power; which is why companies seek to differentiate themselves so they can command a higher price. A free market does not have to use a commodity pricing model.

Re:Economics 101

[Teancum]

I found that most of the casino hotels were willing to provide access to their internet connections (including wifi) in their hotels to non-guests.... for a fee. You might need to ask at the front desk or some "shop" area for "business travelers", but the option was there. It was expensive as hell and by the time you are done you might as well simply rent a room, but the option is usually there to still get on. Free wifi is almost non-existent in Vegas in particular.

Re:Economics 101

[tlhIngan]

Customers who aren't price sensitive, aren't, well, price sensitive. If they cared enough, they'd gather the information. But the extra ding just doesn't make the extra information gathering worth it to them.

Or simply, the cost to do all the added research outweighs the cost of amenities like Wi-Fi. Or other factors intervene.

E.g., a hotel next to the convention center costs more, has paid Wi-Fi, etc., but being able to walk between the two in 5 minutes may be well worth the added cost than spending 30-45 minutes each way from a cheaper hotel (and the added cost of a car rental or taxi or whatever), etc. Or the ability to be right there and entertain guests until late in the morning at a nearby restaurant rather than hotel bar.

There are many factors in play - it's never as simple as "Let's just go to the holiday inn where it's free".

And if you have to drive a half hour out of the way to get to the hotels with free Wi-Fi, versus being right there in the middle of it all, well, perhaps spending the $5/night isn't such a bad idea.

Re:Economics 101

[Pubstar]

I was talking about in a fast food setting. Cups are $.10 and it's roughly $.05 to fill it. Well, at the rates the McDonalds I worked at got it for.

Re:Economics 101

[girlintraining]

Actually, most do - if you are a reasonably frequent guest. Loyalty programs are structured to encourage and reward repeat customers and identify the ones who drive profit and try to ensure they remain loyal customers. It's another way to drive loyalty by offering a tangible savings, which has little marginal cost for the hotel. In the end, many customers don't care about saving the $10 because they don't pay it anyway.

My dad had an expression about this sort of thing: In one ear, out the other. Thanks dad. Even though you're now long gone, your combination of stubbornness and jadedness continues to help me survive even the stupidest internet pundit...

Re:Economics 101

[scamper_22]

While all true, you assume the free market has to serve efficiency.

In truth, the base for the free market is simply that
1. sellers sell whatever they want at whatever price they want
2. consumer purchase what they want, from whoever they want, and the price they agree to

In the grand scheme, it has tended to benefit consumer via lower prices. But I wouldn't say that is the goal. Producers/sellers are just as much people as any body else. If they can charge more by convenience fees... more power to them.

Now yes, there are various things that get added to this equation... monopolies, externalities, fraud, standards.... that we use to make sure things are accounted for and some extreme restrictions. But at the end it is merely the choice that matters.

If it is inefficient... it's all 'good'. It just means the producers are getting a better deal. And it's easy to think of producers as 'nameless' corporations. But they include workers as well.

Ask anyone who has worked in a protected field, or a field with certain restrictions on who gets in, or maybe just a rare skill that they don't each other people... and chances are they enjoy better labor and pay conditions than others.

In short... efficiency... whoever said that should be the overriding goal of the world? I'm not saying it is good to be inefficient. I'm just saying... efficiency isn't a trump card to say... that is the way we should go.

There are loads of other goals like good pay for labor, stability, knowledge...

Re:Economics 101

[Registered Coward v2]

My dad had an expression about this sort of thing: In one ear, out the other. Thanks dad.

You're welcome.

Even though you're now long gone, your combination of stubbornness and jadedness continues to help me survive even the stupidest internet pundit...

Sorry for the delay in responding after so many years. We just got internet access here and it costs $10 per day so I won't be using it to often. I wonder if it is free in the other place.

Re:Economics 101

[DrXym]

Perhaps that was true before the dawn of the likes of TripAdvisor. A hotel which pulls a bait and switch like this is going to attract a lot of negativity and bad reviews from people pissed that something advertised as "free" actually.

Re:Economics 101

[DrXym]

typo - "actually isn't".

Re:Economics 101

[DerekAlexander]

Funny thing, based on what happened to my other friends, he's definitely doing a lot better being ripped off by only $9.99.

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.

Re:Economics 101

[TheRaven64]

It's more subtle than that. In the US, anyone travelling on the government's dime[1] has a fairly strict per diem for accommodation, and a more generous (relative to real costs) one for meals and incidentals. If the hotel charges for WiFi, then this comes out of the M&I budget. This is also why they often charge for breakfast separately. It means that they'll get government customers, even if their room+WiFi+breakfast rate is higher than someone else's, because their room rate is below the per diem while someone who includes all of the other stuff isn't.

Oh, and a lot of US hotels are very willing to take the rate down to the State Department's per diem rate if you ask them to, because they know that they'll get a lot of business if they have a reputation for being friendly to government employees.

[1] This includes both direct government employees and a lot of people funded indirectly, for example people working for a university employed on a project funded with a government grant.

Re:Economics 101

[ConfusedVorlon]

I have found the expensive hotels in the USA to be the worst for nickel & diming you. After you pay $600, they want extra to look after a bag, $15 if you want to drink the bottle of water beside your bed, etc.

Meanwhile down the road at the $60 place - water, wifi and service are included.

Having said that - there may be something in the fact that the luxury hotels were the first ones to install wifi throughout the building - back when it was really expensive to do. They installed it on the basis that they would be able to charge, and haven't updated their assumptions in the face of widespread free wifi.

Re:Economics 101

[tbird81]

"Hey, I'm so rich I don't care how much anything costs!"
-- Said no rich person. Ever.

You've never met my wife.

Re:Economics 101

[L4t3r4lu5]

"High rollers" will have a locked down laptop with a VPN connection to the corporate network. Seeing as the company is bankrolling the hotel stay, that information is completely useless.

If they don't, then I'm happy to offer some "consultation" to their IT staff for a modest fee.

Re:Economics 101

[horza]

People staying at luxury hotels often aren't paying. If you are on a company card you don't care about phone/internet prices, and you don't bother looking at the prices on the restaurant menu. On business trips people can run up $10,000 a month on a mobile phone bill and not blink because it's the "company that pays". A company like Apple has to launder all that tax it's avoiding, so why not burn off some in 'expenses' for top executives? Luxury hotels, yacht and jet charters, etc are great black holes to throw money at whilst having an awesome time.

Phillip.

Re:Economics 101

[abe ferlman]

This. Specifically, business travelers can get reimbursed for their internet much of the time, so they're less likely to balk at the fee. Moreover, business travelers often have little choice in where to stay (conference hotel, etc.) and so aren't going to pick a different hotel for the free wifi even if they'd prefer it.

Re:Economics 101

[Talderas]

The term complementary is completely unknown in Las Vegas.

Re:Economics 101

[mjr167]

The Hilton's I have been staying at have all had free guest wifi. In order to access it you have to give the webpage your room number and last name, so they can still track you without making you pay for it.

Re: Economics 101

[samkass]

Not just that, but hotel chains do this because it's how businesses and the Government (apparently) like to pay them. They negotiate a fixed price for a room then reimburse employees for fees like parking, Internet, etc. If you go $1 over your allotted room rate you're in trouble, but $20 parking and $5/night internet? No problem.

Re:Economics 101

[cascadingstylesheet]

They'd care if they knew they could go across the street and save $10 a night... or about 10-15%. But they don't, so they can't.

They might care in principle. Do they care enough to spend time talking to their company department that made the reservation? Really? They might in principle, but in practice it doesn't make sense.

Re:Economics 101

[omnichad]

That's why you bring your own wifi bridge with you and spoof a new MAC address each hour to stay connected.

Re:Economics 101

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, you are thinking free market and capitalism are the same thing.

Even further:

Capitalism is, in practice, strongly anti-free market.

Think about it: What is the primary issue on the agenda when the board of directors meet? It's figuring how to "game" the system to increase profits. Usually, this entails legal and political maneuvers -- such as legally shutting down your competitors, lobbying legislators to make new competition difficult, filing patents, and other subversions of the free market.

Now imagine someone standing up during the board meeting as saying this: "Gentlemen, the free market must be allowed to determine whether our products are successful." He would be immediately escorted out of the board room, and his board seat taken away from him. Free-market ideology has absolutely no place in the practice of capitalism. When people use the phrase "free-market capitalism" it is an absolute oxymoron. Capitalism's easiest and most natural way to achieve its profit-seeking is to shut down the free market.

Have you ever wondered why for-profit corporations love the patent system so much? It's because patents are the purest expression of anti-free market legal subversion -- they exists exclusively to shut down some portion of the free market. They are one tool in a wide variety of legal and political mechanisms that are the embodiment of capitalism's war against the free market.

Re:Economics 101

[bws111]

vDo you even know what profit is? Your use of '2000%' profit indicates you do not. Profit is revenue minus expenses. By definition, profit can never exceed 100%, as 100% represents income (of any amount) with no expenses.

If something is profitable (and you claim tea is very profitable) then by definition it can stand on it's own (it is bringing in more money than it costs to bring in the money). The fact that you claim both that tea is very profitable AND can't stand on it's own means one thing - you are ignoring the costs when doing your 'profit' calculation, but including the costs when you say it can't stand on it's own.

You are the one who made the statement that the retailer is 'misrepresenting the cost' of tea by selling it for $2. They are not misrepresenting the cost, the cost is real, you just want to pretend the cost isn't there. The cost of selling tea includes far more than the ingredients of the tea itself, you just refuse to see it.

As to your 'license to print money' statement: yes, it is like a license to print money in such small amounts that you can't even pay for the printer. Hardly a 'profitable' enterprise.

Re:Economics 101

[Quirkz]

Is your wife genuinely rich, or upper middle class and likes to pretend she's rich?

Re:Economics 101

[greggman]

What utter bullshit. You want to know if the internet is free at a hotel? Any of the major hotel booking sites will tell you. I've been traveling in Europe for about 2.5 months now. Stayed at 8 hotels so far, 3 more to to go, made sure every one of them had free internet. It's not hard, you can even select it as a filter when searching for hotels. They'll even tell you if it's available in the rooms or only in the lobby.

Re:Economics 101

[T-Bone-T]

Way to miss the point. Tea costs very little to make and is sold for far more than the expense of making it. I have a box of tea that cost $2 and makes about 5 gallons with simple equipment and minimal effort. A restaurant can do it on a much larger scale. Very few people go to a deli just to buy tea. That is why it can't stand on its own. People enjoy tea with their food. Thus, tea is almost pure profit though it isn't a large amount.

Re:Economics 101

[Anonymous Coward]

Youre effectively saying that without total information, you cant have a free society (free market).

No, you just have the wrong definition of free market. Free society is not the same as a free market.

Re:Economics 101

[Opportunist]

That's pretty much the point.

Yes, the soda costs virtually nothing. So do fries. Essentially, you could hand out fries for free (or up the price for the burger by a nickle or so and you're already way over compensation level), just as you do with soda, but you charge for them. Why? Because people are willing to pay for them.

Anything people are willing to pay for will be sold to them. The point isn't that you have to charge because it costs you and you have to recover your expense. The point is that companies would charge you for the air you breathe if you'd pay.

Re:Economics 101

[Opportunist]

Then you're doing it wrong.

I do event logistics on the side, and so far any event I worked for didn't pay for any of their beverage containers. Sometimes not even the beverage itself. They're usually part of the advertising package for one of their sponsors, and believe me, ALL soda vendors usually come themselves to you with the "idea" to give you cups. Offer them the exclusive deal and you get far, far more than just a bunch of worthless cups. If you're a sports event, Red Bull and Monster can be very, very generous (provided the other one doesn't show up, of course...).

I somehow can't imagine that it would be different for fast food stores. Somehow, I couldn't see coke letting the chance slide to print their waves on ever McD cup there is...

Re:Economics 101

[Archangel Michael]

When you realize, that they don't want you surfing the internet, but down in the Casino itself, you'll understand why they charge you for Internet.

Re:Economics 101

[bws111]

You STILL can't grasp this simple concept: there are no profits until all expenses are paid. OK, you admit that just selling tea would not be profitable. Let's go to the opposite extreme. Our hypothetical business costs $10K/month to operate. We have sold $9,900 dollars worth of stuff (no tea at all). So here comes a customer who will save us all! He is going to buy a cup of tea for $2. Quick, how much of that $2 is profit? The answer, of course, if $0, because there are NO profits because expenses have not been met.

OK, let's get to what you will undoubtedly claim. Your business is successful, and all expenses have been met. You have $10K in expenses, and $10K in revenue. Now someone pays $2 a cup of tea and you claim that is pure profit. Except, of course, it isn't. Why, because to claim that the tea was pure profit you would have to say that there was no profit potential at all in anyhting else you sold. The proper way to calculate the profit is to say you had $10,002 revenue and $10,000 expense, or 0.02% profit. Your $2 cup of tea now yielded a whopping profit of $0.0004. Insanely profitable indeed. OK, let's say you managed to meet expenses with everything else, and sold 1000 cups of tea (without increasing expenses, of course). Now the tea must REALLY be insanely profitable, right? Now you have $12000 revenue on $10000 expense, or 20% profit. So your tea profit is now $0.40/cup. That seems quite a distance from 'pure profit', doesn't it?

Re:Economics 101

[Khashishi]

Rich people don't get rich by not caring about prices. (Unless they won the lottery or they inherited their wealth).

The fees are a deception by the hotels to mess up the analysis of the travel planners.

Re:Economics 101

[Talderas]

Drinks come from relatively non-perishable items that can be stored for long periods of time. Food items for any restaurant worth their stuff can't be kept for more than a week. While the markup on a dish would be great profit if they utilized 100% of perishables, this is rarely the case so the overall margins on food isn't that good. Drinks are used to shore up profits because of their low cost and high sell price.

Re:Economics 101

[bws111]

Except you can't honestly do that. You, like t-bone-t are just hiding the costs (by saying it already pays it's rent) in order to make drinks look insanely profitable. If you are going to combine expenses (which is what you did), then you must also combine profits (which you did not do). It is the BUSINESS which operates at a particular profit margin, not an item.

Re:Economics 101

[Pubstar]

I've worked for both corporate and franchise McDonalds in ASM positions. We get charged for the cups due to them not being straight Coke designs and for the syrup itself. Sure, its advertising, and it may be sold at cost to them, but it would still be a HUGE money loss if they supplied every McDonalds everywhere for free. It makes absolutely no fucking sense. In a convenience store, they make no money on the fountain drinks, but all the money on the single serves. That is probably why they are getting shit for free, just more advertising to push their stuff. Hell, we were getting paid for floorspace for 2 coke coolers at a local grocery store.

I know how event stuff goes. I've worked on some semi-large events (4000 person 'Private' Coachella after party being the largest). We got Red Bull and UV Vodka to supply us for the weekend for free, under the stipulation that no competitors products were there. I went home with 9x 24 packs of Red Bull and like 3 cases of UV from that show.

Re:Economics 101

[mattack2]

I recently stayed at one of the Casino/Resort Hotels in Reno and found the "Free WiFi" was only
good for an hour.

Seems like false advertising. Did you complain to the BBB or whichever government organization is appropriate? (BTW, I KNOW the BBB isn't a government organization, I'm not meaning to imply it is.)

Re:Economics 101

[Grishnakh]

Maybe you've never been to Vegas, but in my experience most things are either fairly cheap or quite reasonably-priced, if it's owned by a casino. Their objective is to get you there with good prices, and get you down to the casino floor to gamble your money away. They're not interested in jacking you with bullshit nickel-and-dime charges that piss you off.

2009?

[jaymz666]

Seriously? That's 4 years ago. That's a lifetime in the industry

Screw that! I'll just hop on my WiFi hotspot

[Naatach]

Aww snap! $250 cell phone bill from overages in data usage.

Whatever the Traffic Will Bear

[Anonymous Coward]

Some aspects of the free market can make some things irritating, if not unbearable. It's not hard to imagine the problems that would exist if water rights were undefined.

who is paying for it

[phantomfive]

luxurious hotels — already costing the traveler more — regularly ding us.'

The company is paying for that.

Re:who is paying for it

[hawguy]

luxurious hotels — already costing the traveler more — regularly ding us.'

The company is paying for that.

Exactly - if you're staying at a luxury hotel chain and it's worth your time to complain about a $9.99 or $15 Wifi fee or "resort charge", you probably shouldn't be staying at a luxury hotel chain. But chances are that if you complain about it when you check out, they'll waive the charges

Re:who is paying for it

[Alan Shutko]

We've got a Sheraton by one of our large branches. We have LOTS of people flying there every week. As a result, the company has negotiated with the Sheraton that they waive the wifi charge for all of us, automatically.

Capitalism works both ways.

Re:who is paying for it

[rk]

Maybe I'm weird, but I've been known to burn 10 bucks to get a 5 dollar charged reversed. What's the old saying? "Millions for defense, but not one penny for tribute?" Perhaps my sense of honor and rightness are a little too finely developed. :-)

Re:who is paying for it

[rockout]

Perhaps my sense of honor and rightness are a little too finely developed. :-)

Perhaps????

Re:who is paying for it

[sjames]

Perhaps I'm just a natural utilitarian but in general I have found that the higher end hotels are the ones with expensive and barely functional WiFi, barely functional air conditioning, staff that think they're doing you a favor when they look at you, and big atrium with expensive lighting.

The mid-range places have free WiFi, good food, helpful staff and working air conditioners. No atrium or chandelier. The beds are about the same either way.

eMedia

[gmuslera]

What about ebooks at the same price as the content but with making a big stock with expected losses, stocking, transporting, the physical media (paper, ink, printing, human labor) and all the chains of intermediaries with their corresponding profits? What about the same, but for music? What about movies, where you also must count too the big chunk that takes each theater?

Re:eMedia

[ShanghaiBill]

What about ebooks ... music ... movies

Prices are not determined by cost. Prices are determined by what people are willing to pay. The COGS (cost of goods sold) only sets the floor.

Re:eMedia

[sjames]

However, in a healthy market, price is driven down to the marginal cost of production. We have a LOT of unhealthy markets or market theory is broken.

Re:eMedia

[Registered Coward v2]

What about ebooks ... music ... movies

Prices are not determined by cost. Prices are determined by what people are willing to pay. The COGS (cost of goods sold) only sets the floor.

Actually, it sets the long term floor price required to remain in business, not an absolute floor especially in the short run. Companies may sell at a loss in order to stay in a market in an attempt to outlast competitors in hopes that enough will drop out to allow prices to rise to profitable levels, or when the total loss is less by continuing to produce versus stopping production.

Re:eMedia

[Bite The Pillow]

The costs you mention are not a significant percentage of what goes in ti most books. I won't do your homework for you while mobile, but details and citations have been posted on this very website.

Above negligible, but lower than people assume, because you forget other costs.

Re:eMedia

[gmuslera]

What are the other costs that are specific for the internet version that is not nenligible for each book sold? In the other hand, the factors i put above are measurable for each physical book, probably the biggest ones are the profit of the book store (must pay salaries and keep working with it, and most don't sell millons a month) and the media (paper, nice, colorful cover, etc), and somewhere must be some costs implied on not selling all the copies.

Not "odd" at all

[jedinite]

>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.

Not odd in the slightest -- the majority of said "luxurious" hotel rooms are being consumed by (in no particular order) #1 the price insensitive and #2 business travelers (arguably a great overlap, if not outright subset, of group #1).

Few of either group in covering a hotel bill for a few nights in San Francisco are going to care much if it's $845 or $885 with Internet.

Finally, those in group #2 are much more likely to have elite status with the hotel, which typically (at the higher levels) includes free internet -- making it a "valuable" perk for your brand loyalty...

Re:Not "odd" at all

[demonlapin]

Most real luxury hotels have free wifi anyway. It's the upper-middle business places that charge. I've never paid for Internet at a place that was over $500/night.

Re:Not "odd" at all

[rockout]

Yes, those dirty filthy peasants that are only paying $450/night SHOULD be paying for wifi. After all, $450 a night isn't a "real" luxury hotel. How dare they assume to be as deserving as I am!

Re:Not "odd" at all

[soundguy]

The Palms in Vegas has a suite that runs $26,000 a night. I think it has it's own basketball court. $450 wouldn't even be a decent tip for the valet. FYI, the Palms is just a mid-grade hotel in Vegas. If you want to spend some REAL money, head over to Wynn. They have a Ferrari & Maserati dealership on the main floor.

Re:Not "odd" at all

[demonlapin]

And they have free wifi.

Re:Not "odd" at all

[demonlapin]

Those are all really nice hotels, but they cater largely to business travelers. Think boutique.

Maybe, but risks offending high paying customers

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently almost renewed my contract with Verizon (business plan @~$110/mo after fees and taxes). But Verizon Wireless tried to charge me for an "Upgrade fee". They wanted $30 just for upgrading my device (and re-subbing my contract). This is on top of the normal price of the phone and 2/year contract. So I left for T-Mobile instead and the coverage has been very good and LTE speeds even faster (suburban northeast USA).

Agreed with the rest of the article too, but I cant remember a time when I had to pay a to check my bank balance. That's either an illegal fee or the author needs to switch banks desperately. (preferably to a credit Union).

Tethering...is possibly the most ridiculous of fees though.

Just market forces

[joe_frisch]

Companies want to sell their products at the highest price each consumer will pay. By charging large fees for convenience items they are able to extract more money from people who place a higher value on their own time.

So, you could save money getting a SIM card for your phone to use internationally, but that would take time and make it more difficult for people to contact you. You could go to the hotel lobby for internet, but using the internet in your hotel room saves time.

This has the perverse effect that it may make sense for companies to spend extra money to waste your time or to provide worse service, if it pushes you to one of their higher priced services - assuming of course that they don't push you to a competitor.

Its just one of the very annoying effects of the free market. If you want to feel good about it, think if it as a "tax" on the wealthy who are able to put a higher value on their own time.

payroll cards

[vux984]

Their last example - payroll cards with fees ought to be outright illegal. IMO.

Re:payroll cards

[mjwx]

Their last example - payroll cards with fees ought to be outright illegal. IMO.

In most civilised countries, they are.

Re:payroll cards

[GumphMaster]

I live in a civilised country. I have no idea what a payroll card is.

Re:payroll cards

[quintus_horatius]

Basically, it's your paycheck given to you on a debit card.

Re:payroll cards

[GumphMaster]

This sounds perilously close to 19th century England where workers were routinely paid in tokens that could only be spent in company run stores (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck_system)... and was frequently rorted. Are employers getting a kickback from the debit card providers? Why do people afflicted with this simply stand there and demand that the debt, i.e. their pay in arrears, is settled in US (I assume) legal tender or direct deposit to a bank account?

Re:payroll cards

[Anonymous Coward]

A while ago I was staying away from home at a university town working in a start-up (pre-funding) and found myself in financial dire straits. I had to find work ASAP and took a shit job at a 24-7 convenience store a block away from the 35,000 student university to scrape money together and get my ass home. When I quit, the place was going through the paperwork to become a 7-Eleven. Within weeks, we would stop receiving paychecks, and instead be issued a debit card from the company which they would pay us with. There were fees for every single type of transaction with the card. Withdrawals, purchases, and even balance inquiries would cost somewhere between 1 and 4 dollars (I can't remember). There was an opt-out, but the process was a pain in the ass.

Re:payroll cards

[Rich0]

I live in a civilised country. I have no idea what a payroll card is.

As you can see from the other replies, the former is the reason for the latter.

Re:payroll cards

[vux984]

These cards are issued to minimum-wage employees that can't get bank accounts (because they have a history of overdrawing them.) If they had bank accounts, they wouldn't need the cards.

Except that the cards are abusive - with much higher fees than normal. The card provider has no risk - they are pre-paid debit cards for crying out loud. So its abusive to the employees.

Additionally, since the employer is getting kickbacks, they have an incentive to put all employees on them, even those with bank accounts and good credit, and so they erect obstacles and hurdles to allowing employees with bank accounts from being able to use them.

In the olden days, unbanked employees would have to get paper checks, which they would then take to high-fee check-cashing shops

Which have also gotten a bit of a legal ass-kicking lately. So now payroll cards is the new "scam" to abuse those people.

Re:payroll cards

[GumphMaster]

These cards are issued to minimum-wage employees that can't get bank accounts (because they have a history of overdrawing them.)

Huh? All the bank has to do is refuse withdrawals beyond a zero balance. There is no risk to the bank here. The only people in US I would expect to be unable to open a bank account would be "illegal" residents... and employers should not be employing them, should they ;)

The more I read about what is "normal" and accepted in the United States the more I understand why US-ians cannot fathom the so-called "socialism" of Canada, Europe and the rest of the world.

Is this regionally dependent?

[Teun]

I travel quite a bit and especially in the less developed world I stay in upmarket hotels (J.W. Marriott etc.) that generally don't any longer charge for internet.

In my experience these things improve rapidly, last year I was in a Best Western in Aberdeen Scotland and they had some outrageous price like 15 pounds, for 24 hrs. of access, on check out I complained and they gave it to me for the price of a 1 hr. ticket, 5 pounds.
This year it's for 'free', or in other words; included in the room price.

Virtually all restaurants now have free internet.

During the last few years the UK was really expensive, at a time that most hotels in The Netherlands already offered net access for free.

Re:Is this regionally dependent?

[dave420]

Hell, in the UK you can just pick up a prepaid SIM for £15 with literally unlimited 3G data, 300 texts and 300 minutes, which is good for a month. That takes care of your internet, and you have it wherever you are. It takes 3 minutes to buy the SIM, a minute to install it and restart your phone, and you're good to go.

Touch-tone fees on Landlines?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I haven't had a landline in well over a decade, so all I can do is wonder - do the telcos still charge a monthly fee for touch-tone service? That used to be the standard despite the fact that maintaining rotary functionality was the more costly option for most telcos.

Re:Touch-tone fees on Landlines?

[cusco]

My uncle was the first person we knew to have touch-tone service, back in the 1960s. I think there was a $1.50/month charge for it. By the time my folks got their first touch-tone phone in the early '80s touch-tone service was free. In 1997 Glenn's partner looked over the phone bill and found that they were still getting charged the $1.50/month fee.

Up until the late 1960s you didn't own your phone, you leased it from Ma Bell. When I worked in a bank trust department in the early 1990s we paid a lot of our customers' bills for them, and I was shocked to see that many of them were STILL leasing their phone from the phone company. In one case at least I knew that the phone had been thrown out when it broke two decades before.

Re:Touch-tone fees on Landlines?

[frostfreek]

Yes, yes they do.
I am confident that it COSTS BELL more money to maintain their old pulse dialing systems.
But those bastards just see it as a 'free' source of revenue.

Re:Touch-tone fees on Landlines?

[GerardAtJob]

You can't even get a pulse phone right now...

Upscale hotel customers get everything free.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Most upscale hotel customers are business travelers and their corporate employer is picking up the tab. They don't even look at the bill. If they do it is to make sure the correct euphemism is used for the porn bill. So in some sense they get everything free.

Again the real big businesses get into large contracts with the hotel chains and they get a different rate. But then the hotels get smart and add "service" fees. And the next round of contract talks things get negotiated. The cycle goes on.

In all our travel, if there is no free parking, free breakfast and free wi-fi, I am not even looking at the hotel. They get filtered out.

Re:Upscale hotel customers get everything free.

[Registered Coward v2]

Most upscale hotel customers are business travelers and their corporate employer is picking up the tab. They don't even look at the bill. If they do it is to make sure the correct euphemism is used for the porn bill. So in some sense they get everything free.

Internet Access Fee seems to be the correct euphemism.

Verizon phone upgrade.

[mosb1000]

Verizon wanted to charge me a $30 "upgrade" fee when I tried to upgrade to a new iPhone. They're already charging me $200 for the phone and $80/month for the service (plus a new two year contract to replace my recently lapsed one). That means I'm already going to be paying them $2,120. That sounds like a pretty sweet deal for them, what possible expense could this upgrade fee cover?

Re:Verizon phone upgrade.

[samwichse]

Lube.

Re:Verizon phone upgrade.

[Pubstar]

Ignorance. I mean no offence by that but it's true. Go to a store to buy your phone, pretend that the upgrade fee is the breaking point and start to walk, and they will wave it. He'll, I did it most of the time if the customer was nice and just asked if I could.

Re:Verizon phone upgrade.

[mosb1000]

This is 2013. I'm not physically going to a store to buy a phone they won't have in stock anyway. I just bought it directly from Apple, for some reason there's no additional fee when I do it that way. Though I noticed that Apple will only give me $175 credit for my 4S, while Verizon said they'd give me $200, so maybe that's where the additional $30 came from. Not that it matters because I'll ebay it anyway.

Re:Verizon phone upgrade.

[Pubstar]

I have never had the issue of a phone being out of stock (even on G1 release day). And is driving (or hell, biking, the exercise is good for you) maybe 2-3 miles to your RadioShack, Best Buy, or just a carrier store, too much? Combine that with the in store deals that they have and the fact that sometimes they help you choose a better plan in store when you upgrade, you could be losing out on money. When I went to upgrade to my S3, the sales rep look at my usage, and told me that he was going to shift me to a new plan - Unlimited text and data (no data cap, full 4G speeds as long as I didn't tether), and set me on a 500 minute plan since I rarely go above 300 minutes. Guess what? I went from a $120/month bill to $70 (including tax and phone subsidy). The bill drops to $50 in 20 months after my contract started. The funny part is that the plan wasn't exactly listed on their site or in store pricing sheets, so he totally hooked it up for me.

But you know, you don't want physical contact with other people who can help you out. Let the computer do it all.

Re:Verizon phone upgrade.

[mosb1000]

Maybe I should explain that I live 70 miles from the nearest Verizon store, and that the iPhone 5S I want is not likely to be in stock at the moment.

Re:Verizon phone upgrade.

[Pubstar]

Yeah, that does make a huge difference. I wouldn't want to drive 70 miles to go to a store to pick up a damn phone. Its worth it though to at least give them a call to see if they can help you out on your bill and to waive the upgrade fee. I don't know about Verizon, but on T-Mobile, I've never been on hold for longer than 2-3 minutes, and I always get someone in Georgia.

DNS and ICMP Tunnels

[utkonos]

Why pay? Connect to their access point and tunnel all of your traffic over DNS or ICMP. The firewalls that they use rarely block ICMP and almost never block UDP port 53. All you need is to have a client installed on your machine and run a server out on the interwebs somewhere that is running the right server software and acts as a proxy. The tech to do this has been around for quite a while, and most linux distros have the clients and servers in their repositories. The main system used for DNS is called iodine and there are two different, very good ICMP tunnels that I know of. One is here and another here. If you search through your favorite linux or BSD distro's repository search for "ip over icmp" or "ip over dns" and you'll find what you need.

Re:DNS and ICMP Tunnels

[Anonymous Coward]

Why pay? Connect to their access point and tunnel all of your traffic over DNS or ICMP. The firewalls that they use rarely block ICMP and almost never block UDP port 53...

Is there a clean, elegant explanation of this (without having to resort to being a script-kiddie)? I get the idea of what's going on, but it's a bit convoluted. It appears one can do it in a step by step way with proper access to everything; then a way with complications that you've described by circumventing the router due to inaccessibility. Signed, an embarrased AC.

Some of us would rather not break the law. Using for-pay Wifi for free is stealing.

Re:DNS and ICMP Tunnels

[mattie_p]

Why pay? Connect to their access point and tunnel all of your traffic over DNS or ICMP. The firewalls that they use rarely block ICMP and almost never block UDP port 53. All you need is to have a client installed on your machine and run a server out on the interwebs somewhere that is running the right server software and acts as a proxy.

Why pay the hotel when you could pay the hosting company/ISP for a server on the interwebs that you use when you travel, but pay for all the time? Sounds brilliant.

Re:DNS and ICMP Tunnels

[omnichad]

No. That's not how that works. This is more like steganography. The server on the other end has to embed the tunnel payload in real ICMP responses and real DNS query results. That requires special software at both ends. And the DNS option fails when the hotels hotels capture DNS traffic and redirect it to their own chosen DNS servers.

Re:DNS and ICMP Tunnels

[LordWabbit2]

You can rent a virtual Linux box for $30 a year.
Not much RAM or disk space, but more than enough to get around firewalls etc. and not just to get free wifi.
Comes in handy, trust me

Re:DNS and ICMP Tunnels

[grumpy_old_grandpa]

Tried this over the airplane wifi the other day. Works like a charm!

Re:DNS and ICMP Tunnels

[grumpy_old_grandpa]

> Using for-pay Wifi for free is stealing.

That is why I always download Metallica's forth album over DNS. The two injustices cancel each other out, and it all becomes flowers! You didn't know that!? You should really try it some time!

Re:DNS and ICMP Tunnels

[utkonos]

This would not work. All the firewalls that I've encountered are configured to only allow UDP port 53. If you just have ssh listen on port 53 it will still be blocked because ssh uses TCP.

To do it properly, you really need to have the correct client and server that will make real DNS or ICMP packets that contain your data as a payload.

Re:DNS and ICMP Tunnels

[utkonos]

You can also use AWS, Azure, HPCloud, Rackspace, or others and pay a few cents per hour for the server only when you need it. Spin it up when you go on holiday, and destroy it when you come back home.

Touch-tone fees

[Maow]

Bell Canada land lines: $2+ / month touch-tone fees.

And pulse dialing is not available according to Bell.

Touch-tone, that new-fangled tech from the 1970s...

Fuck you Bell.

Re:Touch-tone fees

[walterbyrd]

> Touch-tone, that new-fangled tech from the 1970s...

Touch-tone has been around since 1962 - over half a century ago.

http://laughingsquid.com/century-21-calling-the-introduction-of-the-touch-tone-phone-1962/

Re:Maybe, but risks offending high paying customer

[mcgrew]

The only one that's ripping me off right now is AT&T, and that's only because Comcast would screw me harder. All I'm buying from them is DSL and I'm paying $47 a month. Meanwhile on my phone I not only get unlimited internet* (with email from my 10 year old address, YouTube, Google), but a phone with long distance, voicemail, 411, roaming, all unlimited and included in the $42 I pay them. I'm not going to name them but they're not the only ones and some may even be better. I've been with them for 5 years with no problems except their website is an ugly clusterfuck, but most are these days.

Hell, even my credit card company doesn't screw me over, and I'll bet most of you the people you guys deal with don't screw you, either. But you're nerds, and we're not normal (at least I'm not). I use a small local bank, and they're damned near free. Wasting your money is stupid.

But most people? Hell, I'll tell people what I'm paying for my phone when they're paying three times that for less stuff, and they go on using the expensive carrier they're with. And switching carriers is easy; maybe expensive if you're on a contract but easy.

Why in the hell am I paying seven dollars more for internet alone than a phone WITH internet?? I guess because there's competition in the cell phone business. I wish my phone company sold internet.

* I listen to KSHE on it all day long at work, that's eight hours a day using its radio, plus when I ask it the temperature or read a novel or newspaper

Re:Good Topic. Mediocre Article

[reboot246]

I've seen at least one Motel 6 that charged for wifi. I think it was about $6/day, and I didn't stay there. The EconoLodge down the road a mile was about the same price and had free wifi.

Re:easy to avoid; differential pricing

[cusco]

And you have a landline ... because?

We live in Seattle, an earthquake and volcano zone, where a 70 mph wind causes region-wide power outages that can last for a week or more and flooding can isolate a large chunk of a county for days. In an emergency the cellular phone network is useless, in fact it's generally over capacity just during especially bad rush hour traffic. Land lines will stay up as long as there is power at the closest central switching station, and even if you do have trouble making a local call an outgoing long distance call (to a relative or friend out of state) will pretty much always work.

Re:Good Topic. Mediocre Article

[cusco]

That's amusing. The original name of that motel chain was 'Six Dollars A Day'. Really.

Not much of a question

[sootman]

"Why are they charging for it in the first place?"

Duh: because they can.

This isn't even Econ 101. This is stuff everyone knows before they even enroll in an Econ class.

Wait a second...

[WSOGMM]

I'm posting this from a hotel with pay-for internet access. I'm paying about $200 a night for two beds (so not too expensive, but expensive for me). As soon as I saw that the internet costs money here, I thought to myself, well shit, I won't be coming to the Hilton again. So yes, I would imagine that it does affect the amount of customers they get, but apparently not enough for them to lose money on charging for access. Fortunately the conference that I'm attending is paying for my internet.

As a side note, they don't offer any free breakfast either. :(

[/rant]

Re:easy to avoid; differential pricing

[GumphMaster]

And you have a landline ... because?

Try and get an ADSL service without a copper cable. In Australia the majority of ADSL services are bundled with a plain old telephone service (POTS, pricing is fixed so that a naked wire is just as expensive but with fewer service guarantees). That, of course, does not make using the POTS mandatory. VOIP works just fine at fixed cost-per-call nationally and far-cheaper-than-traditional rates internationally.

that's why congress refuses to fund you anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, here they are trying to employ H1B's and all you do is piss it away on things like internet fees.

Profits

[manu0601]

TFS says:

profit-making is at the heart of our economy

That is true for SMB, and that was true for megacorporations in the last centuries. Now when transnational companies make profits, the money never goes back to the real economy because there is not enough demand: who want to invest when the new products and services will not have customers? Instead, money goes to speculation, inflate bubbles, and when bubble burst, that wrecks the economy even further.

Re:Profits

[iggymanz]

except most of the economy is still individuals and SMB moving money

Re:Profits

[manu0601]

It depends what you call economy. I assume you refer to "real" economy, and you mean that GDP is mostly based on exchanges between SMBs and individuals.

I would agree with that, but the problem is that "real" economy accounts only for 2% of financial transactions. All the profits that are injected into that circuit are removed from "real" economy. It sounds weird, but capital, who was supposed to fund the economy, has managed to become a major cost.

SMS Text Messaging?!

[MicahEli]

How the heck is text messaging not included in this list?

SMS messages are piggybacked onto existing beacon probes between the cell network and the handset. They cost virtually NOTHING to the carrier. They are 99.9999999% profit. The fact that the general public isn't intelligently adopting iMessages and Google Hangouts for this reason alone is silly. I see the argument though... Short term, the price gouging that occurs in SMS and MMS messages will simply transfer over to the data plans. Long term, the moment SMS is no longer a contract-signing focus, the carriers will become competitive with the data plan fees/restrictions. That's how I see the future anyways. :)

http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/141867-price-gouging-it-costs-more-to-send-a-text-message-on-earth-than-from-mars
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/12/text-messages-c/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/sethporges/2013/03/28/mobile-carrier-are-worried-about-free-messaging-apps-good/


Just sayin'

Re:SMS Text Messaging?!

[Khashishi]

It is, if you are texting long distance.

Lock in contracts

[Anonymous Coward]

One thing nobody appears to have posted yet... the big hotels might have a contract with someone who installed the system back when nobody had free Wifi. They're paying the price of being early adopters, and they're probably locked in for a minimum term.

Sweet tea.. here's how to make soda pop

[anubi]

I got really fed up with paying high prices for soda pop.

The 2 and 3 liter plastic bottles soda pop comes in make handy carbonation vessels. I drilled a hole in the cap and inserted one of those bolt-in-place stainless steel tire stems sold at Pep Boys. I also got a 20 pound CO2 tank at a garage sale, and a decent 100 PSI adjustable regulator from a surplus house.

I fill my bottle to the brim with water. Refrigerate it. Warm water will not carbonate... cold water will. Then I connect my special cap and hook it to 70PSI CO2 ( Do not connect to tank directly, as tank pressures run from 500 psi on a cold day to over 1000 psi on a hot day; the CO2 inside the tank is a liquid ).

I shake for a few seconds and watch the gas stream into the water. About 10-15 seconds or so. After that things taper off. I shut off the gas and disconnect the hose. I take my container full of freshly carbonated water into the house to mix with any variety of flavor powders or fruit juice concentrates.

Makes great fizzy soda pop. It cost me $14 to get the 20 pounds of CO2. I have been using the same tank for about 3 years now. My calculations show I have roughly enough CO2 to carbonate a swimming pool full of water. Its gonna take me quite some time to drink that much.

The one caveat is you do not want any substantial volume of gas in your carbonation vessel, as the compressed gas will release substantial mechanical energy in the event of a rupture of the vessel. The water does not compress, so the idea is to minimize the amount of explosive decompression you get in the event the bottle ruptures - albeit I have not ever had that happen.

Bundling and Price Discrimination

[halexists]

Hey Esther -- Bundling and Price Discrimination. Read up on it, and watch all your questions about such fees melt away.

"Old School" approach

[Eyezen]

In the so called luxary hotels Ive been in where they charge for WiFi theres a pretty good chance they have a real live active *gasp* ethernet port that can be used free of charge. Also good to carry a patch cable in the laptop bag. Piggybacking that to the tablet is an exercise for the reader.

Re:"Old School" approach

[Megane]

I think it would depend on how new the place is. I'm sure it's a pain in the ass to rewire a hotel pulling cat-5 for Ethernet to every room. I remember hearing that some hotels (before WiFi became common) would actually wire up each room with a DSL modem because it could use the existing copper phone line.

Re:"Old School" approach

[omnichad]

I was researching something unrelated and I did found out that they actually make DSLAMs for use in Hotels. They can offer "triple play" to the rooms. That is, the same copper wire provides phone, Internet, TV and pay TV.

Re:Maybe, but risks offending high paying customer

[Mycroft_VIII]

There are also states that have laws to specifically cover paycheck debit cards that take some or all of the crap fees out.

Mycroft

Re:Maybe, but risks offending high paying customer

[wayne1932]

Just added my wife to my Consumer Cellular account. We had been paying 57.00 month for her phone. After adding her to mine, I will be paying about $35 month for both of our phones. Furthermore CC uses the ATT network which has worked flawlessly for us for about 20 years now.

I will help you

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, asking for an elegant explanation is being a script-kiddie. It is like saying I want to be an expert without being a nubile first.

Want that elegant explanation? Just type 'man nc' at your nearest terminal.

most places in las vegas have forced resort fees

[Joe_Dragon]

most places in las vegas have forced resort fees that come with wifi

Re:Maybe, but risks offending high paying customer

[spire3661]

I am leaving Verizon as soon as i can over the ridiculous tethering bullshit. Its on a compltely separate meter from my unlimited data package and its $20 fucking bucks. My phone can suck down as much data as any laptop, their old excuses of tethering using more data is bullshit now.

Not misrepresentation

[SuperKendall]

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

It's not a "misrepresentation", it's charging what the market will bear. Very obviously the real price is much lower.

Another factor not considered is that more well off travelers staying at high end hotels are very likely to have cellular connected devices already, so there's not as much of a need to even provide internet service. If you don't have to do something as often, you usually charge more because you lose scale.

Re:Maybe, but risks offending high paying customer

[sjames]

If it isn't my money then they haven't fulfilled their obligation to pay me for my work. If it's their account, the fees should be charged against their money, not mine.

Re:easy to avoid; differential pricing

[ciotog]

Here in Canada a dry loop DSL line is about $10 extra per month, which the CLECs justify as a price differential for a lost POTS customer. VOIP generally has monthly additional charges - for 9-1-1 service, DID tn, etc.

Forced hidden fees need to go away or be part of t

[Joe_Dragon]

Forced hidden fees need to go away or be part of the base fee.

High-End Hotel Patrons Aren't Paying the Bill

[mikestew]

If I'm staying at a Best Western, I'm paying for it. If I'm staying at the Hilton, odds are it's on an expense account so screw it, charge me $20/day for WiFi. I'm not going to be paying for it.

reminds me of California

[slashmydots]

This so reminds me of my trip to Santa Monica, CA. I stayed at the Oceanic on the beach and the plane, taxi, food, and hotel were all paid for + a free $50 prepaid Visa for random expenses by one of the companies I was working for. So I decided to treat myself since it was sort of vacation-y and not 100% business and get a nice salad with room service. I was dead set on it as I looked for the menu. Then I found it and it was like $34 plus in tiny italics it said there's an 18% gratuity on the bill regardless of payment method plus they probably want a cash tip anyway when they get there. First of all, if that 18% built-in gratuity actually goes to the delivery person, they make more than I do at my job. I would quit on the spot and bring salads to rich families for like $10 per trip in a heartbeat. Secondly, I didn't end up ordering anything.

Re:reminds me of California

[NoImNotNineVolt]

In my experience, in addition to the 18% gratuity, there is also a 20% service charge. And of course sales tax.

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:Maybe, but risks offending high paying customer

[inflamed]

The only one that's ripping me off right now is AT&T, and that's only because Comcast would screw me harder. All I'm buying from them is DSL and I'm paying $47 a month. Meanwhile on my phone I not only get unlimited internet* (with email from my 10 year old address, YouTube, Google), but a phone with long distance, voicemail, 411, roaming, all unlimited and included in the $42 I pay them. I'm not going to name them but they're not the only ones and some may even be better. I've been with them for 5 years with no problems except their website is an ugly clusterfuck, but most are these days.

Hell, even my credit card company doesn't screw me over, and I'll bet most of you the people you guys deal with don't screw you, either. But you're nerds, and we're not normal (at least I'm not). I use a small local bank, and they're damned near free. Wasting your money is stupid.

But most people? Hell, I'll tell people what I'm paying for my phone when they're paying three times that for less stuff, and they go on using the expensive carrier they're with. And switching carriers is easy; maybe expensive if you're on a contract but easy.

Why in the hell am I paying seven dollars more for internet alone than a phone WITH internet?? I guess because there's competition in the cell phone business. I wish my phone company sold internet.

* I listen to KSHE on it all day long at work, that's eight hours a day using its radio, plus when I ask it the temperature or read a novel or newspaper

Yikes. My "cell phone" company offers just LTE internet as a service. If I used my device as a phone only (say, 2000-3000 minutes and as many text messages) I'd pay $12/month. Voice and text data is small data.

Re:My Quick Rundown

[kenshin33]

#4: TV/Internet Equipment Fees: Overblown. The break-even point on buying your own equipment is ~2-4 years of ownership, assuming you never have a problem.

modems (DSL, not DOCSIS: see below)? if not free rental it's a rippoff (new 50-70$ used 5-20$, they last years).
TV boxes? well, may be. But the thing is if you want this or that tv/cable internet provider, you need their box,
you can buy your own (except if you bought it used from an ex customer of the same company) sot they charge what ever the hell they can get away with,
especially when they control usually a very large proportion of the market.
(where I live we have mainly 2 big companies : cable (videotron) VS sat (BELL), rpices a re almost the same, the deals too).

Strange, when you think of it

[ByzantineAlex]

Meanwhile, in Romania, of all places, a provider (RDS) announced deployment of a new "pipe" (fiber-optic) that would allow (they say) up to 1 GB/sec down, all that for around 10..12 euro/mo, which is the cost of a one-person lunch in a mid-scale restaurant in town. I currently have about 40Mb/sec and pay 23 euro/mo for the whole package (internet, 70 channnels IPTV, and landline phone). In other words, if the situation is this bad in Australia, as per previous posts... it clearly is a huge money grab.

BT's "cease charge"

[dr_blurb]

Another example: I've been trying for months now
to get BT's (British Telecom's) "cease charge" refunded:
they charge you 30 pounds for closing a broadband account (!)

No luck so far :-(

Re:BT's "cease charge"

[u38cg]

Always cancel the direct debit before they can take these charges. Then it's their problem to convince you, and not vice versa.

If you've already paid, usually small claims works.

Well for one thing the data is old

[Sycraft-fu]

Notice it is from 2009. Things have changed a lot in that time. Back then, the Seattle-Tacoma airport charged for WiFi, now it is free there, as a simple example.

However it is also region/country dependent to an extent and also in certain ranges of hotels. The really nice places don't tend to charge. Their guests expect that dropping a couple hundred for a room means you don't get nailed with piddly shit and will get mad. Also the budget places don't tend to charge, as it costs them very little and it is something that will drive customers somewhere else. If someone is worried about paying $40 for a room, they'll sure as hell worry about paying $10 for Internet.

The places that still most often charge (though they are coming around) are the middle ground hotels. The three star business types. Places where it is expensive enough that people who stay there have cash and aren't too price sensitive, but not luxury such that an addon could be seen as an insult.

Smartphones have also had an impact. Getting much more common to have a phone you can tether and thus use that if the hotel tries to screw you. So a chain will find that basically nobody is paying their exorbitant fee, thus they are making nothing, but they ARE driving away some customers by charging, so they decide to make it free.

typical blog rant

[Tom]

What could've been a good article is, unfortunately, just your typical uninformed zero-research blog rant.

What's missing is what journalism is all about: Going deeper, finding the causes, even if they are more then one step away.

For example, why do some hotels charge for Internet and others don't? No, it's not the price, that is counterintuitive (cheap hotels often offer free Internet, expensive ones charge, as the article also says). So what is it? Well, other articles on the topic that did some actual research dug up the answer years ago: It's not the price, it's the guests. Hotels that are largely frequented by business travellers will charge, because a) their guests really need Internet and b) are ready to pay for it because it's business expenses anyways. Hotels that are largely frequented by tourists offer free-of-charge, because their customers would probably go to a nearby Starbucks instead if they charged and Internet or not may be the deciding factor between this hotel or the other one down the road as in the low price range there are fewer actual differences between the hotels.

If stuff like that had been in the article for the other 4 items as well, it would've been a good read.

Re:Maybe, but risks offending high paying customer

[Tom]

Hell, even my credit card company doesn't screw me over

Or you don't notice. Remember that money is not the only thing they can screw you with.

For example, I'm getting more and more angry every time YouTube tries to convince me to use my real name, and it never goes away. The best you get out of it is "ok, we'll ask you again later". No, you stupid piece of crap, I want you to accept my answer once and for all, period.

But, Google wants your personal data, because that is what they are selling to their customers (which isn't you, you're the product). So they keep insisting as much as they can get away with. Because my account data with my real name on it would be more valuable then without.

Some companies screw you on service fees, some on quality, some on customer service - but they all screw you somewhere.

hotel wifi

[mjwalshe]

in the more upmarket ones is aimed at business people on expenses - so its just another way to ramp the bill up if your on expenses you dont realy care how much it is as its not your money

22% of my cell phone bill is taxes

[gelfling]

But the best one is the power company charges me $5 to NOT get a paper bill OR $5 for a paper bill. One is a convenience charge and the other is for, oh who knows- recycling?

Fuck them all to flaming uranium hell forever.

Trains

[hotrodent]

OK so maybe not a tech cost but a ridiculous train ticket fee in some countries that I just don't get. Say there is a train journey from station A to C, and you must change to a different line at B. Example tickets:
A to C (not leaving the station at B) = $6
A to B, exit, enter again then B to C = $8 ($4 each leg)
How and why should exiting and rentering the station at B cost $2?
Japan has the best costing since you pay for the distance you travel. Simple, effective!

Cell Phone Data Plans

[matt328]

I hate that you can't have a smart phone without paying at least an extra $30 a month for a data plan. I like my smart phone, its a single device that makes/receives phone calls, holds all my music, photos, camera, calendar events, bathroom games, all that stuff, but I don't need a mobile data plan. My usage patterns are such that I'm rarely out of range of a wifi access point, and in the rare instances I am, I'm fine with waiting like 20 minutes till I get back to a wifi hotspot to sync back up. $30 might not seem like much, but both my wife and I are in the same boat, so that is $60 a month that we're paying out and not getting anything in return.

Another poster mentioned pretending it is a deal breaker and getting certain bullshit fees waived, but has anyone ever tried this with a data plan and have a voice-only plan on a smartphone with Verizon? It seems my only option is to use a 'dumb' flip phone for calls, and carry around an additional wifi-only device for all the functions I listed above, and I am fully ready to get my flip phone from a different carrier just out of spite.

Re:Cell Phone Data Plans

[omnichad]

If you're in the US, switch to Ting or some other MVNO.

You have to buy your phone outright, but you and your wife can pool data/SMS/minutes. Your monthly bill goes down if you don't use all of the service you signed up for.
https://ting.com/rates

I'll be switching soon - but for now I'm sticking with a dumb phone and one of Ting's hotspots.

Re:Cell Phone Data Plans

[neminem]

Yeah, you have to buy your phone outright, but you can also buy a refurb phone. I got my phone (through Ting) for 78 dollars, which came with a 50 dollar Ting credit. (That 50 dollar Ting credit is down to 25 now, but still.) It's a great phone. (Amazon has it listed new for use on Boost, for 200 dollars.)

Re:most places in las vegas have forced resort fee

[cdrudge]

So presumably you visited Vegas...and went to the public library? You sure do know how to have a great time. I think this would be one of those times where what happened in Vegas needs to stay in Vegas.

Business travelers

[kilfarsnar]

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.

It's all about charging what you think you can get. Budget hotels house budget travelers who likely won't pay extra for WiFi. So free WiFi serves to differentiate you from you competitors, or at least keeps you competitive. Higher end hotels serve a wealthier clientele who won't notice $30 tacked on to a $1000 bill, or business travelers who will just pay it and expense it.

Re:Good Topic. Mediocre Article

[Whorhay]

I'm not sure if I've ever stayed at a Motel 6, but I have stayed at plenty of Best Westerns which I think is probably fairly comprable. Starting about 8 years ago I noticed that free wifi and wired internet access seemed to be the standard. Those rooms are usually $50 or less a night. Meanwhile I stayed at an Embassy Suites about a year ago because I was on a business trip and it's location was excellent. The Website talked about having free internet access so I didn't think about it too much. It turned out that the free internet was through two terminals in the lobby. If you wanted access otherwise it was $10+ a day. The cost of the room was more than triple what I'd expect from a budget hotel and honestly the facilities and service didn't even warrant double the cost. I don't plan to stay at another Embassy Suites ever again.

How to hit back at a hotel charging for WiFi

[orzetto]

I am soon going to New Orleans for a conference, and the hotel charges $14.95 per day for WiFi. Knowing that hot water is not metered, that's what I plan to do:

1. Assumption: hot water is produced by natural gas, temperature 50 kelvin above environment. Tap capacity 10 L/min. Natural gas cost: ca. $12 per 1000 cubic feet, equivalent to one million BTU.
2. Cost of energy is $12 per GJ, or 43 cents per MWh.
3. Power for heating of fully open tap: 10/60 x 4150 x 50 = 35 kW
4. Cost of fully open tap: 0.00042 $/second, or $1.51 an hour

Therefore, I will let hot water flow free for about 10 hours (every night, closing it at breakfast) and offset the profit they make on WiFi.

Re:How to hit back at a hotel charging for WiFi

[Khashishi]

Assholes don't cancel each other out.

Re:Maybe, but risks offending high paying customer

[daviddennis]

Why would Comcast mess you over more than AT&T DSL/Landline?

Down here in South Florida, Comcast is 10x faster than AT&T at about the same price, and they have always billed me honestly. AT&T, by contrast, has added huge, incomprehensible fees to their bills, making $50 or so in announced charges turn into $80.

D

Re:Comcast

[omnichad]

That's so they can pretend there's no monthly charge for the cable boxes.

Re:most places in las vegas have forced resort fee

[Teancum]

I was merely stating that it was the best network service I found in the whole city in terms of network bandwidth. If you have the money where you don't give a damn, of course you can always hit one of the casinos.... or try to get "lucky" with a slot machine or something else there as well. Unfortunately most people who use computers are smart enough to know the odds are stacked against you when you visit a casino, so depending on winning the money needed to buy network coverage is usually not an option and is utterly stupid to even plan on.

Just how large was the expense account you used when you last made a trip to Vegas on business? Did it include a few thousand dollars for "entertainment"? No doubt some businesses similarly don't give a damn or expect that sending employees there for the various conventions are also going to "live it up". I wasn't so lucky.

not tech but EVERTHYTHING at upscale hotels

[peter303]

If it has a pool they charge a "resort fee". Plus a half dozen other fees. The budget chains have all-in-one prices. Car rentals and airlines have large add-on fees too.

2009, really can we get newer data?

[sir lox elroy]

The first two entries in the article, second predominately, use old data or information.

Dialing 1 before a long distance number

[aclarke]

This one could be considered the opposite of the rant in the tarticle. Why in Canada with Bell on my land line am I NOT ALLOWED to dial 1 before a local number, yet I HAVE to dial 1 before a long distance number? I DON'T CARE if it's local or long distance! I can afford the $0.04 per minute or whatever. Just let me make the call without having to hang up and dial again with or without the magic prepended 1.

At least my mobile phone just tells me it's local/long distance and puts the call through anyway. It's an improvement.

I switched from Bell to TekSavvy for my home phone a few years ago. I thought TekSavvy might make this problem go away then but it didn't.

</rant>

Re:easy to avoid; differential pricing

[stenvar]

OK, I've "had" a landline in that sense as well; it comes with DSL. But you don't have to use it for anything, certainly not long distance.

Re:easy to avoid; differential pricing

[stenvar]

Let me rephrase it, since it obviously was a little too ambiguous for you:

"You use a landline for anything but emergencies/for long distance... because?"

And if you really worry about emergencies, you're better off getting an amateur radio license.

Re:easy to avoid; differential pricing

[cusco]

Most of our friends and coworkers don't have a land line at all, just cell phones. I assumed that was what you were referring to, that seemed the most obvious anyway.

A HAM license? Seriously? If I want to let my mom in Michigan know that we're all right with a HAM license I'd have to first find electricity, then locate someone in her area, and then convince them to call her. Maybe that's easy, I don't know. I can also plug my laptop into the land line and make a connection to an ISP if I need to.

Our land line costs less than Rosa's cell phone and is more reliable. We don't especially "worry about emergencies", but it's a good idea to be at least prepared at the very basic level. We also have food in the pantry, a dry wood pile, and generally have an extra bag of dog food. Over the years in the various places where we've lived we've been through earthquakes, snow storms, wind storms, flooding, ice storms, hyperinflation, and three terrorist attacks. Basic preparation goes a long way.

Digital Cable boxes....and their fees

[realsilly]

So now days to use simple technology as recording (something we used to be able to do for free with a VCR) we get dinged for $20 to $50 / month. I'm talking about DVR service. Augh.

Add that to the HD technology fee when you get the HD digital cable package. Um, what's with the technology fee? It's not like you're fixing issues with digital broadcasting or improving on the HD pictures that are compressed in transfer. We're just being hit with extra fees and questioning them does nothing to help anyone take notice of them.

Oh Cable companies, you're such a racket, as bad as the insurance industry, or Obamacare. Shame on all of you.

Re:Maybe, but risks offending high paying customer

[mcgrew]

Comcast wants twice what AT&T wants for internet alone. What's worse they send paper spam here daily and even had a god damned spammer ring my damned doorbell a couple of days ago!

I don't need the extra speed, I live alone and DSL suffices. There's no reason for me to pay for extra speed. And I don't need or have a landline, either. Just DSL, smartphone, and an antenna for OTA TV.

Re:most places in las vegas have forced resort fee

[Xoltri]

I just use the McDonalds on the strip for free wifi. Was good enough to do face time.

Re:most places in las vegas have forced resort fee

[Talderas]

Vegas, especially the casino hotels, is going to charge you for WiFi and they're charging you not with the intent to make extra cash. They charging you for WiFi to discourage you from sitting in your hotel room on the Internet and instead trying to get you to go out on the casino floor where you'll lose your money on the games.

Internet costs in Canada

[DarthVain]

Same BS statistics are used in Canada.

Never mind 95% of the population lives in a 100km strip across the US border...

Also places like Finland have similar population densities and somehow they make it work with lower costs and higher speeds...

I live in a City, and pay 80$ a month for Internet. Does it costs anything near that? No. I pay that because the telcos know they can make me pay that.

Travel and the Internets

[DarthVain]

So I go traveling abroad from Canada, spend a couple weeks roaming around the med.

So I can't really use my phone anywhere but Canada with having 1000's of dollars in bills, (which is a whole other rant entirely) but I figure I am going to be in a civilized countries (maybe not Turkey, sorry Turks! :)) and like big cities in Canada there will be free WiFi everywhere and I can just communicate via the internets!. I mean McDonalds, Tim Hortons, StarBucks, just about every restaurant, business or whatever will have free wifi.

Surprise#1: Italy apparently has no internet anywhere, except in nicer hotels that want 20$ a minute to use it. It isn't like it is a tourist destination or anything silly like that.
Surprise#2: Greece may not have many things, like working toilets and sewer system, or an economy, but holy crap do they have internet everywhere. The guy who has a gyro stand on the street corner will not only have wifi and a password to access it, but an iPad to use at your convenience...