I’m stuck in the Charlotte airport, and I wanted to give some kudos to the good people of Charlotte for making WiFi access available in their airport for free. In this case, I’m stranded in Charlotte for a couple of hours, so I probably would have plunked down the requisite $7.99 if they’d asked for it. But in the vast majority of cases, where I’m in the airport for an hour or less before my flight, the fee discourages me from using the connection. This is a pure deadweight loss for the world, denying Internet access to a lot of people in order to squeeze a few dollars out of the handful willing to pay an inflated price for access. It’s good to see Charlotte buck the trend, and I hope my own airport follows Charlotte’s lead.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.