Originally Posted by
gglave
It's important for hotels to ensure that they have every single available electric outlet in every room in use, ensuring that there is no means for guest to use their laptops or charge their cell phones or iPods. One convenient way for hotels to gobble up every outlet is to plug lamps into them all.
Once they've plugged lamps into them they can also push large pieces of heavy furniture up against the outlets to further prevent guests from accessing them.
Funny. This seems like their strategy. (In hotels in Europe and the Middle East, they often have these bizarre master switches that control some but not all of the lamps; at a suite at the InterContinental in Doha, it seems like I have to manually turn off about half a dozen lamps each night.)
I wondered the reason for this, too, and assumed that it was just for simplicity/cost savings in construction, but others have raised some other good explanations here. I find the lighting in most non-luxury hotels to be a major detraction.
I really like a recessed light in the ceiling above the shower; but, more often in the typical U.S. chain hotel, I find myself showering behind the thick curtain in near darkness.