[dboreham]

I think what you say is possibly true, but like other posters here I do not recall paying for wifi in recent years and I also stay at many different hotels. I have seen services where you can pay for better throughput or for a public IP. I wonder if perhaps I and the other posters are not being charged for wifi due to "status". That is, we have been flagged by the hotel chains as valuable customers and free wifi is a perk of that status. E.e. "platinum" status or similar.