Quote of the Day: Chicago (Updated)

OTB alum Kate McMillan is in Chicago for a dog show and muses, “You’d think a $200+ a night hotel located in the heart of a city that has benefited from years of superlative community organizing would offer free net access.”

Sadly, a $200 a night hotel isn’t what it used to be these days. And even ridiculously expensive hotels often charge $10 a night for wireless, just because they can.

UPDATE (Dave Schuler)

Seizing the day (and since I was going to be at the dog show anyway) I took this opportunity to meet Kate in person. Very nice. Apparently, she’s been showing Miniature Schnauzers for many years. The dogs she brought did quite well, BTW.

Photo: National Geographic

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. William d'Inger says:

    And even ridiculously expensive hotels often charge $10 a night for wireless, just because they can.

    Well, so? It’s a capitalist enterprise. They can charge whatever they want. They’re best off charging whatever makes the most profit, but the optimum price is somewhat difficult to determine.

  2. Anon says:

    I’ve never quite understood the business economics behind expensive hotels. They nickel-and-dime everything. I would have expected (naively, apparently) the opposite. I would expect that cheap hotels charge for everything, and that expensive hotels charge a single up-front fee that covers everything.

  3. Eneils Bailey says:

    Well, so? It’s a capitalist enterprise. They can charge whatever they want.

    You got that right.

    Go to the other side of town for fifty or less bucks a night. Pay twenty five dollars for a cab ride, each day, and each way to attend your event downtown. Then hire an armed guard to protect you, each time you stick your nose outside your door.

    “caveat emptor”

    Latin for ‘let the buyer beware’, or in Australian ‘you pays your money and you takes your chances’….

    I have stayed at the Ritz a couple of times in my life; not on my dime, mind you. In reviewing the checkout bill; I figured they charged you for every time they saw you walk across the lobby. And farting in the lobby, that would really cost you.

  4. Triumph says:

    “You’d think a $200+ a night hotel located in the heart of a city that has benefited from years of superlative community organizing would offer free net access.”

    Is this lady somehow taking a swipe at Obama because her hotel–a private business–isn’t giving her free internet access?

    I went to her blog and it appears that she is Canadian–which might explain the inane comment.

    Unlike the socialist paradise of Canada–businesses in America can control their operations. If you don’t like it, you can have plenty of time to pout whilst waiting weeks to get into an emergency room in one Canada’s socialist hospitals!

  5. Eneils Bailey says:

    “You’d think a $200+ a night hotel located in the heart of a city that has benefited from years of superlative community organizing would offer free net access.”

    I get the point About “community organizing,” and how a Utopian Society would have included “free everything” his followers and free internet for you.
    It’s humor not wasted.

    Of course, even people of marginal intelligence do realize you soon become slaves of expectations, surpassing those of your abilities.

  6. Triumph says:

    I get the point About “community organizing,” and how a Utopian Society would have included “free everything” his followers and free internet for you.

    This lady just has the typical Canadian naivete about the world.

    I looked at some of the coverage in the Canadian press of Obama’s visit to Ottawa and I must say these people are bigger Obama-philes than most American liberals.

    When Canadians like this lady get out of their socialist paradise and come down to America, they are shocked to see an actual capitalist economy at work and cry in the absence of their nanny-state safety net.

    To those Canadians, I say: stay at home and coddle your terrorists like Maher Arar, eat bad donuts, and watch the most boring “sport” (aka hockey) ever.

  7. mpw280 says:

    Ever hear of cellular internet? You can have your access with you and use it too. MPW

  8. Eneils Bailey says:

    Ever hear of cellular internet? You can have your access with you and use it too. MPW

    Good point.

    We, not long ago, implemented this for 4500 users. Sent out the software, loaded through group policy, sent out the air cards, and emailed instructions to everyone.

    Still, to this day, some people can not pour their own piss out of a boot, with the directions written on an email.

  9. PD Shaw says:

    I agree with the above comments about the oddity of expensive hotels nickel and diming the extras.

    But $200 a night in the center of Chicago is not an expensive hotel. It may not even get you a modest, relatively clean hotel.

  10. markm says:

    But $200 a night in the center of Chicago is not an expensive hotel. It may not even get you a modest, relatively clean hotel.

    Ten or twelve years ago I stayed at a Howard Johnsons just outside of Sandusky OH. $100/night and..well…there was no interweb. Anyhow, i’m also thinkin’ 2hundy a night in Chi-town prolly isn’t an expensive hotel.

  11. anjin-san says:

    “You’d think a $200+ a night hotel located in the heart of a city that has benefited from years of superlative community organizing would offer free net access.”

    Somebody who does not get out much whining about Obama for no reason. Not really news…

  12. James Joyner says:

    Still, to this day, some people can not pour their own piss out of a boot, with the directions written on an email.

    Of course, directions for signing on to the Internet that one needs Internet access to read can be rather tricky.

  13. Rick DeMent says:

    But $200 a night in the center of Chicago is not an expensive hotel. It may not even get you a modest, relatively clean hotel.

    Yeah that was the first thing I thought. Hell, in New York $200 bucks wouldn’t cover my deli tab.

  14. mpw280 says:

    I’m going to a rustic place on an island off of Nicaragua on Tuesday, its $75 a night and it has internet, whats that say? mpw