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Comment by blazespin | Hacker News Reader

Hotels should be able to charge whatever they want. If you don't want to pay for wifi, chose another hotel for your conference.

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Read the article again. The issue isn't really about the price for wifi, it's that hotels are blocking the spectrum so you can't set up your own wifi or tether (which is not allowed by the FCC).

Then by the same token they should block cellphones and charge $10 a minute for calls.

Also how about bringing the water you purchased outside back to the room? Should be confiscated.

If there weren't protectionist regulations that create massive barriers to entry in the hotel industry, neither of those things would be an issue, because any hotel that implemented them would get eaten alive by competitors.

Are you implying the hotel market isn't competitive?

I don't know about the US, but I remember a European hotel investor claim that he usually only invested in hotels after they'd been through 3-4 bankruptcies, because it was first then that the price and debt load had dropped enough for the hotel to have a decent shot at becoming profitable.

I'm implying that the more competitive the hotel market is, the less of a problem customers will have with blatantly ridiculous policies like those mentioned.

Those suggestions were just a alternative example of things a hotel could do that would be along the same lines as blocking wifi, where the impact is more extreme but the principle is the same.

I think if any hotel did those things, it would anger people enough to assemble and boycott the hotel. However the wifi thing they can just about get away with from a customer point of view, because you can kind of 'live without' internet in your room for a while, where as phone calls and water maybe not.

Oh and the barrier to entry to run a hotel is high, but the barrier to entry to provide clean and comfortable accommodation at a reasonable price is quite low. Long before AirBNB, holiday lettings of apartments (as I call them you may call it leasing/renting) have been popular. More income to the landlord, and the tenant saves money vs. hotel.

I could totally see a hotel not allowing outside food or drink even in a room. I was helping run an event at DEFCON this year and apparently the Rio was fining the conference for people in the conference area having "outside food or drink", especially alcohol, and "outside" meant "not purchased from the conference area concessions" - stuff from other parts of the hotel/casino wasn't okay.

Then by the same token they should block cellphones and charge $10 a minute for calls.

Some hotels in Paris tried that a few years ago. The FCC clamped down hard on attempts to block cell phones in the US. To report a jammer, call the FCC at 1-855-55NOJAM. Or "jammerinfo@fcc.gov". Or http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/jammer-enforcement

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