Internet in Hotels—a Puzzle
In my experience, low and medium priced hotels/motels usually provide a free internet connection, high priced ones usually charge for it. This seems to be true not only in the U.S. but in Europe as well, although that conclusion is based on less data—one fancy hotel in Helsinki, one each less fancy in London and Paris.
Does the pattern hold in general? If so, why? The obvious guess is that it has something to do with price discrimination, but I'm not sure just why it makes more sense to price discriminate against internet users in expensive hotels than in inexpensive ones.