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Comment by jmathai | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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