Originally Posted by ukdoctor

I suspect its EK's way of avoiding complaints about it not working .

If it doesn't work and you havent paid then they can say that its a free service not available on all flights.

If you have paid $1 and it doesn't work then the maximum they have to do is to refund you $1 . They will probably blame the 3rd party provider and also know that most people won't bother about it.