The Ridiculous Tech Fees You're Still Paying 318
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.'"
Internet costs in Australia (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Economics 101 (Score:2, Informative)
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:Internet costs in Australia (Score:2, Informative)
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:eMedia (Score:4, Informative)
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:Economics 101 (Score:5, Informative)
$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.
Upscale hotel customers get everything free. (Score:4, Informative)
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:Internet costs in Australia (Score:5, Informative)
Do you know anything about Australia? Do you realize that a huge part of the country is essentially desert and uninhabited. Your population density stats mean little.
Look at a state, like Victoria, with a population density of 63/sq mile. That would put it in the middle of the US states, somewhere around Mississippi. Certainly it's no new york city, but neither is it Alaska.
Somewhere with that sort of population should easily be able to support multiple ISPs and have faster and cheaper internet service than that mentioned by the OP. Of course OP may live in the middle of Western Australia, in which case the 1.5 Mbit for $70 is probably a bargain.
Re:Economics 101 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Verizon phone upgrade. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Economics 101 (Score:4, Informative)
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:most places in las vegas have forced resort fee (Score:5, Informative)
I found the best place for WiFi in Las Vegas was the municipal public library. You need to go out of your way to find it, but the librarians were pretty decent about helping you get hooked up if you were courteous and reasonable. It sure as hell beat trying to jerk around with the hotel management and the bandwidth was a hell of a lot better too. If you wanted to even bother, all you need to do is sit in you (presumably rental) car with your laptop or go inside and they even had outlets... or you could get onto terminals in the library.
An added bonus by bringing your own equipment is that you essentially had no real time limit either.
By far and away the worst places were the resort hotels, but even the budget motels are a pain in the rear.
Don't even get me started with "roaming fees" for cell phones. Las Vegas is a death trap for most cell phone carriers. I purposely bought a throw-away cell phone at Wal-Mart with pre-paid minutes explicitly for calling from Vegas on the last time I was there. A buddy of mine brought in an AT&T cell phone, and ended up with a $500 cell phone bill before he left after just a few days in that city. His typical cell phone bill was usually about $40/month. Reno is almost as bad as Vegas too. By using the throw away cell phone, I only had to pay $50, including the brand-new cell phone and I even had minutes left over after the trip. It is just one of those "buyer beware" kind of things.
Re:Economics 101 (Score:5, Informative)
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.