What ever happened to designing Wi-Fi as a way to connect to the Internet?

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Everytime I read more about the ways people are trying to turn Wi-Fi into another way to intrude on our lives it makes me a bit sad. Sad that people would dream up ways to do things to others they would NEVER want done to themselves.

I bet most who work on such project NEVER want to share their own personal data, have companies inject data into your Internet stream, or enjoy having Captive Portals slow down and hassle themselves at every turn.

Yet, ironically, they are proposing… nay – promoting doing it to others and charging a boatload of money to do it.

So, no. I’m not thrilled with the entire ‘engagement’ view of Wi-Fi.

My simple take is public Wi-Fi Internet access should be Fast, Free, and Easy.

You don’t see companies trying to ‘monetize’ their escalators, or elevators, or security, or garbage collection, or any of a number of freely provided public services. Why abuse your customers via Wi-Fi, you don’t do it when you provide all those other services.

Could you imagine a world where the escalator vendors and salespersons tried to sell their products on the basis of ‘monetization’? It is ludicrous in that world, it should be just as ludicrous in the Wi-Fi world.

Why not simply provide to end users what they want – Fast, Free and Easy access to the Internet without anything getting in the way?

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