The goal of man is to build a better mouse trap.

The goal of nature is to build better mice.

So not someone spoofing the Starbucks wifi and gathering a great deal of dumb people numbers to sell to a telemarketer?

I'd wager a list of people dumb enough to buy an iPhone and pay that much for brown and water would be worth a bit as they'd be pretty much anyones "target audience" :D

angle? >>snerk<< well, there you have it. starbucks+ianything is pretty much a targeted demographic. hey... remember copla years ago when some turkish sheep fell off a cliff and some godawfully huge number of other sheep followed them [ reported in el reg, natch]? yep. it's like that.

Doesn't it cost more to restrict access to certain users then simply to give everybody free access.

I mean a hotspot doesn't generate more costs when it's in use, still you should pay for it. On the other side, toilets costs substancial costs when in use, yet in many places they are freely usable.

Good to see the self-righteous sneering is in full swing already.

Do they have anything similar to the 1990 Computer Misuse Act over there?

Peter Principle adherent : Well , it seemed liked a good idea at the time !

Can't comment on that side of the pond, but here there's a lot of charging based on data flow - so more people using it does cost you more.

Also, if you make it free, you'll get a lot more people using it - making the connection a lot slower for your paying customers...

However, I'd agree with you that the costs associated with locking it down probably do exceed the revenue... Especially since there are so many ways to get around it if you know what you're doing.

If you have to use Safari...

Even having to spoof the User-Agent is bad enough....

Anon due to flamebait

@Christian Berger

'Also, if you make it free, you'll get a lot more people using it - making the connection a lot slower for your paying customers...'

Shall we examine that assertion with logic enabled?

'Also, if you MAKE IT FREE, you'll get a lot more people using it - making the connection a lot slower for YOUR PAYING CUSTOMERS...'

WHAT paying customers? You just made it FREE! If it's FREE, by definition there are NO paying customers - there may have been, once upon a time, but YOU just made it FREE! Remember?

Hah! You throw user manuals together for a living, don't you? :-)

The ones buying coffee, rather then sitting on the bench outside I would have thought.

You star in widely distributed hotel promotional videos for a living?