Somewhere along the line, I heard that the resort fees at the Venetian, $20 per day, are actually optional, such that if you don't use the "resort" facilities, you can decline to pay it. I'm not sure if you do that at checkin, when you're intending not to use the facilities, or at checkout, when the hotel can presumably verify whether you've used the facilities.

Although the checkin desk did explain that there was a daily resort fee, it was not the desk clerk who mentioned that it was actually optional.

If the resort fee truly is optional, I could see some benefit to it and some reason for guests to want to have it-- so they can decline to pay for services that they don't intend to use. But I don't think the marginal benefits of this a-la-carte approach to services outweighs the misleading aspects of resort fees.