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Comment by UnoriginalGuy | Hacker News Reader

I think you're massively overstating how common WiFi is. First off it only exists over certain land areas, and secondly it is so costly on most flights few are paying for it ($35 for a 60 minute flight? Uhh no thanks).

Plus you'd still read Skymall during takeoff/landing where electronic devices are banned.

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I think you're massively underestimating the future trend. More flights will have wifi for cheaper. Not less for more money.

Sure, from the looks of today it might not seem like a big disruption for SkyMall but it will.

On most flights I go on I'd say about 10-20% of the folks have a tablet device. That trend will also go up and continue to decrease the effectiveness of SkyMall.

On what basis do you claim that "most flights will have wifi for cheaper"? There really isn't much competition when you are at 10,000 feet. Also, if airlines wanted to differentiate themselves based on quality, they had ample opportunity to do so. From my understanding, for coach seats in the US, airlines compete solely based on price.

European low-cost airline Norwegian currently has free wi-fi on all their European flights. I'm pretty sure this trend will continue - it's a relatively inexpensive way for airlines to differentiate themselves from their competition.

I doubt wifi will get more expensive or be less common on airplanes in 4 years. But sure, assume it will. SkyMall would still have to compete with tablets that passengers carry.

I can't site a research paper to back this up though.

Great thought. That's why SkyMall (profitable, $100M+ revenue) should merge with an unprofitable reverse-merger OTC trading company that is unprofitable with $10M trailing revenue on 40/60 terms.

Instead of doing that, maybe they could have hired technical staff and built a mobile app themselves?

I actually thought of that, but I realized that BoingBoing (and the like) beat them to it but being the gatekeeper to the internet. From last I've seen, they have their own shopping portal (and Amazon was access was complimentary). Why would I go out of my way to download the SkyMall app? What value would it give me?

The only way I see that working is if the airline somehow made it possible to install the SkyMall app and use it. Providing the app exclusive access to communicate back down to earth.

I know it's possible because the last flight I was on did it for Ebay. You could surf Ebay for free without having to pay for Wifi.

I wouldn't be on this approach working for SkyMall though.

The people likely to pay for WiFi are also likely to be valuable Skymall customers. E.g. I always buy WiFi on domestic flights and haven't touched an issue of Skymall in years. I have, however, made Amazon purchases while flying.

On delta I've been paying around 5 dollars for flight long wifi

Next time you're on a flight, scroll down on the wifi rates. I noticed that the top option was something like you mention, $35 or whatever per day. However, a few packages below the "per day" rate was a "duration of the flight" rate that was somewhat cheaper, like half or less.

from http://www.southwest.com/wifi/

> Internet access will be available for $8 all day, per device and will be displayed once you launch your internet browser and connect above 10,000 feet*.

This trend will continue and expand.

On many of the airlines that have Wifi, Delta has it on most of their mainline fleet, also have free ebay or amazon even if you don't get the wifi.

The cost is closer to $12-15 for a long haul and as little as $5-7 for a mobile device or shorthaul or with a coupon pack.

Well it doesn't have to be 100% right now for people to be able to read the writing on the wall, right? They can look at trends and see Wifi adoption going up and legitimately worry about it even though not a lot of flights today have Wifi.

Satellite-based global coverage is becoming a reality. Lufthansa, for example, has coverage on some transatlantic flights. United is currently in the process of installing WiFi on every flight, including over-water flights.

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