Clearly the solution is to just make Wi-Fi free by default. Once this is done, it becomes uninteresting to download gigabytes of crap to "hurt" people. Win-win for everyone. Just saying.
> Once this is done, it becomes uninteresting to download gigabytes of crap to "hurt" people. Win-win for everyone.
I would disagree. Here in my corner of EU, public buses have a limited 30min - 1hour free wifi access. What most everyone does immediately getting in the bus is connect to the free wifi and start mindless scrolling on TikTok, Facebook or Instagram. Around 20-30% of the people are super obnoxious and play all the videos over loudspeaker or start calling their friends and speaking loudly as if they are in their home or something, until someone else yells at them. So far, I have only seen two person this month appearing to do something valuable(one was writing an email and another was checking local news).
Just because you think entertainment (or rather, their specific form of entertainment, since you seem to consider reading the news OK but facebook not ok) isn't "valuable" doesn't make it so.
Being able to enjoy entertainment (or, as you'd probably see it, "mindlessly waste the time" that you have to spend on the bus anyways) is what makes public transit bearable.
I really agree with this point; who’s to say making the email is not less valuable or making the world just a little worse? I would probably agree more if the example was Netflix or even YouTubr but part of me is still biased toward feeling TikTok is just probably neurologically worse than anything outside of drugs.
>Around 20-30% of the people are super obnoxious and play all the videos over loudspeaker or start calling their friends and speaking loudly as if they are in their home or something, until someone else yells at them.
This is a culture problem, and has nothing to do with free Wi-Fi. This kind of thing never happens here in Japan, except maybe foreign tourists.
Except there's 2,500 people on that ship and the satellite bandwidth is 15mbps. Now making it free doesnt work because the resources aren't there.
If you want free wifi, that's great but the private sector isn't going to do it for you. How many of these public nuisance hackers are advocating for large socialized programs to make wifi a human right on all manner of transport? Usually the hacker demographic is right-wing libertarian and would never advocate for socialism.
So you dont want socialism but you want socialized services? Curious.
If this person's story ended with "Then I started a website to advocate for regulations and pricing for better transport wifi," then that would be great! Instead he just drowned out the internet connection of paying customers who are now making angry calls at some poor tech support person making minimum wage in a poor country. He did nothing but hurt people out of his own immaturity and cheapness.
These are paying customers, discouraging them from coming back is a net loss. Suppose your cabin includes a shower but you need to pay every day to actually use it. Nobody would think that’s reasonable, but because internet used to be difficult companies are still tacking on insane fees even though the actual costs are minimal.
With Starlink you’re looking at a lot more than 15mbps. We’re at the point where some cruise lines offer free Wi-Fi and people still see multi megabit connections anyway.
Commerce includes many unspoken agreements. Order a meal at a restaurant and expect to pay list prices +taxes etc, you don’t expect to be charged for using the salt on the table, or the price of a doggy bag etc. Airlines don’t charge people to go to the bathroom, though they may reserve better bathrooms for first class etc.
Companies breaking with these trends face a backlash assuming a competitive marketplace.
Reasonable is not wanting to be nickle and dimed for every amenity that could possibly be split into a separate cost.
Prices for such add-ons, especially ones that your average customer won't think of before, are also often unreasonably high because the operator knows they have a captive audience they can exploit - you either buy from them or go without.
Once my company instituted a per diem limit for meals while travelling, I stopped eating cheap food and would deliberately spend exactly the limit to spite the penny pinchers
