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)
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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.
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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
Re:Internet costs in Australia (Score:4, Insightful)
Internet costs in Australia. Its not uncommon to pay around $70/month for ADSL 1 speeds (1.5Mbps).
I see you're on Telstra.
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Yep and the government hoodwinked the majority of the population as an election stunt that we don't need no NBN...
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..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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (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.
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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.
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Re:Internet costs in Australia (Score:5, Funny)
Just so you know, noplace else in the United States wants to be considered as similar to Mississippi.
Re:Internet costs in Australia (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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.
Economics 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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 (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.
most places in las vegas have forced resort fees (Score:2)
most places in las vegas have forced resort fees that come with wifi
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.
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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.
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mac address randomizer :)
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Maybe, but risks offending high paying customers (Score:2, Insightful)
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 pa
Re:Maybe, but risks offending high paying customer (Score:4, Interesting)
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
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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
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Mycroft
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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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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
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Not to mention Panera internet (at least for me) is very slow compared to Starbucks and Panera also blocks VPN.
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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 [google.com] whose motto is "Got Guts?" ($1.25 drafts) Caddycorner from an Outlaws motorcycle club headq
Re:Economics 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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"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.
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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.
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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 (Score:5, Informative)
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Somebody mod this guy "informative". He clearly knows what he's talking about.
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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?
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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.
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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 (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.
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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.
Sweet tea.. here's how to make soda pop (Score:2)
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
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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 p
Not misrepresentation (Score:2)
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
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.
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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
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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 everyon
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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
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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.
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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 wha
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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 possibl
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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....
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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 en
2009? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously? That's 4 years ago. That's a lifetime in the industry
Screw that! I'll just hop on my WiFi hotspot (Score:5, Funny)
who is paying for it (Score:5, Insightful)
luxurious hotels — already costing the traveler more — regularly ding us.'
The company is paying for that.
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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
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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. :-)
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Perhaps my sense of honor and rightness are a little too finely developed. :-)
Perhaps????
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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.
eMedia (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Not "odd" at all (Score:5, Insightful)
>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...
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Just market forces (Score:4, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
Their last example - payroll cards with fees ought to be outright illegal. IMO.
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Their last example - payroll cards with fees ought to be outright illegal. IMO.
In most civilised countries, they are.
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I live in a civilised country. I have no idea what a payroll card is.
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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?
Is this regionally dependent? (Score:3)
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.
Touch-tone fees on Landlines? (Score:2)
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? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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.
Verizon phone upgrade. (Score:4, Interesting)
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: (Score:3)
Lube.
Re:Verizon phone upgrade. (Score:4, Informative)
DNS and ICMP Tunnels (Score:5, Insightful)
Touch-tone fees (Score:2)
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: (Score:3)
> 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/
Not much of a question (Score:2, Offtopic)
"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.
Profits (Score:3)
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.
typical blog rant (Score:3)
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.
Business travelers (Score:3)
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: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
That's amusing. The original name of that motel chain was 'Six Dollars A Day'. Really.
Re: (Score:2)
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 loc
Re: (Score:3)
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.