It also sounds like a mostly American thing. I fly several times a year and I am yet to be on a flight with any form of Wi-Fi available, it's quite exotic to me stil.
My experience with Emirates wifi has been terrible though even when paying.
I flew to South Africa in October. My flight from Amsterdam to Johannesburg had free messaging. On my ipad I could use google hangouts, whatsapp, email and google drive. I was chatting with my wife in Hungary and my daughters in the US for the whole flight. It was amazing. I also got some work done. This was a KLM flight.