[mindslight]

When they get your identifying information and feel like hassling you.

The only immoral thing here is the wifi provider increasing the complexity of the transaction to extract as much money as possible. Should one be required to tell the supermarket their net worth so they can be charged "appropriately" for their food? Anonymity is the basis for a shared existence.

Two parties whose sole interaction consists of sending signals back and forth certainly don't need the outside law to mediate between them - if one party finds the relationship unfavorable, simply stop talking. It's a shame that people have been so brainwashed into thinking it's their responsibility to enforce someone else's desired business rules.

[TylerE]

I find it a bit amusing that someone on this site, where so much of the content is about optimization and business models, is acting so morally offended by the concept of price differentiation.

[mindslight]

So many of the articles are about business model optimization because it's not the primary nature of hackers - they need to be reminded. The major difference is that the businesses here are new and the market and product are uncertain (inherently complex); Internet access, by definition, is a solved commodity.

[TylerE]

Really, it is? How come in 2012, I, who live in decent sized US city (Metro area is about 140k), still pay about $40 for 10Mbit connectivity, barely better than I could get 10 years ago?

[mindslight]

Because utilities tend to plateau when they provide "enough" capacity? The house I'm in has the original water main and electrical service from 1900 and 1940. Being a commodity says nothing of the price (/trend), just the fungibility.