McDonald's hasn't heard the word

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on April 6th, 2009

We’re posting this from the sparkling new McDonald’s on the Strip in Vegas. We’re sorely disappointed, though, that we had to PAY FOR INTERNET ACCESS! What a bunch of backwards neanderthals! Haven’t they heard the word that “free is a business model?” They’re still hooked up with Wayport, still charging $2.95 for a two-hour block of wireless access.

Starbucks and McDonald’s (and the Riviera Hotel-Casino) should wake up and smell the bandwidth– stop charging for internet access! It’s pointless. And, eventually it will not pay to charge for it… and it will be beneficial to offer it for free!

At least McCarran Airport let’s folks hop on for free. (In stark contrast, Philly International offers it to college students for free. Yeah… college students… those engines of commerce, those captains of industry. Just brilliant. What do we expect from Philadelphia, one of the most backwards cities in the nation. They only recently cooked up an idiotic scheme to blanket the city with a mesh network and then… charge people for internet access! They eventually had to abandon the project when Earthlink walked away after pouring $20 million into the disaster.)