Free Wi-Fi

This Dallas Morning News article almost makes an interesting point:

Broadband Internet speed is available for the price of a cup of coffee.

While Starbucks and other national chains charge subscriptions for wireless Internet service, a growing number of locally owned restaurants, cafés and businesses in the Dallas area are giving it away using Wi-Fi networking technology. 

All that most of them ask is that you buy something – a sandwich, a cup of joe or an oil change.

I'm one of those people who LOVES to take advantage of free wi-fi, because it offers a welcome change of scenery from which to write from (not to mention the ability to do both while getting either caffeine or alcohol), and I'm mostly happy to deal with the occasional spotty signal strength.

One thing I'm not interested in accepting though, is additional advertising.

As I mentioned, I'm trying out the Wi-Fi at Buffalo Wild Wings and I've discovered that, once every 10 page loads or so, they throw an advertisement for their restaurant and it's specials up instead of the requested page.  This makes me very upset.

The point in the DMN article is that, unlike Starbucks, who still charges for their Wi-Fi access, other coffee houses, restaurants and bars offer it for free, in an effort to lure people from the evil chain and into their place.  For me, it has been a largely successful ploy, as I couldn't tell you the last time I stepped into a Starbucks.  For Buffalo Wild Wings to then punish me for coming in by subjecting me to advertising is silly and won't make me a repeat customer.

In this society in which we are bombarded by advertising, to punish a person for taking the bait you offered to come into your restaurant, and then force them to sit through even more advertising is silly.  More importantly, it's a bad business decision.  I'll come back to BWW at some point, I'm sure.  But I won't come back nearly as often and never to use their wireless access.

 

Comments

[Summer]

The last free wifi I used was at Panera, and when I connected, the first page I got was their website. Funnily, though, the first thing I was going to do online was look up the nutrition facts on their menu items. So they'd done me a favor!

But every 10th page? That's lame.