Originally Posted by
acunningham
Don't think of it as stupidity, think of it as facing different incentive structures. In particular, time is more valuable than money to the wealthy. If you're a corporate executive whose time is worth $1000/hour, does it make sense to spend time searching hotel websites when booking that romantic getaway with your spouse just to save $9.95 on internet access?
Realistically, the average customer of the average Hilton, Hyatt or Sheraton isn't earning $1000 an hour, though. No doubt you'll find some very high earners coming through these hotels too, but on any given night the vast majority of rooms are being sold for one to two hundred bucks a night to the merely rich-ish, like... well, me!
The thing is that even when I'm on my boss's money I
still won't pay for the wi-fi. Because if they query "Hey, why did you waste all this money for internet when you could have just gone down to Starbucks and used their wifi" I won't have a good answer; it's just not worth the mental effort. They probably won't ask, but why take the risk? (Of course if the hotel's room rate were just twenty bucks a night higher then nobody would bat an eyelid.) On the other hand, if it's my own money I'm definitely not gonna shell out; that feels like I'm being ripped off.
Someday perhaps I too will earn a thousand bucks an hour, then I can stop worrying about these sorts of things. Until then I'm stuck with it.