On Thursday and Sunday I flew to and from Chicago. I bought in-flight WiFi on both legs. I can’t do this without thinking of the famous Louis CK bit, everything is amazing and nobody is happy.
Is Louis right? Are we a bunch of whiners who should be grateful in-flight WiFi even exists? Or are we right to demand something more than the moderately functional yet expensive product we get today?
As someone who does a fair amount of programming I know it is no small feat to converse with a computer. They’re, well, not human. I do find the ability to surf the web while flying amazing.
On the other hand, it seems the hard part has already been done. Internet signal is being sent to and from a plane flying through the sky. How much more work is needed to ensure you can’t randomly end up on a flight where their WiFi is inexplicably inoperable that day? In an industry with minuscule profit margins, what will it take to get competitively priced internet?
During my Chicago trip I experienced the glory and the frustration of in-flight WiFi. On the way there, I was able to quickly turn around a report to my boss before I landed. On the return trip, I drafted my recent blog post evaluating my 2017-2018 NBA predictions. Well, I thought I did. You see, when I checked my drafts yesterday my work from the flight had not saved.
Maybe Louis would be okay with that. But paying $15 to lose an hour of work sure seemed like a raw deal to me.