'They only happen because people like you and me agree to implement them.'

i am sorry, this is absurd line or reasoning. This logic has never worked in the history of business. It can only work in lisenced proffeshions like law and accounting where doing something nasty would loose you your lisence and your boss knows that, so literslly noone would agree to do it

secondly, captive portal at prague airport actually has a function - it provides you with up to date information about flights and dates.

The market for software engineers is very good. Many companies can't just cut you loose because you push back against an anti-feature. If they do, you have no shortage of other companies to work for.

You can provide flight information without a captive portal, just stick it on a normal web server. Maybe stick QR codes around the airport to help guide people to it. Bonus: you can access it outside of the airport.

> The market for software engineers is very good. Many companies can't just cut you loose because you push back against an anti-feature.

they can and always do find someone else to do it. This line of reasoning literally has never worked

As a thought experiment, if we want to use voluntary inaction to prevent bad ends, we have to go the distance. Standing alone won’t work , because companies can raise their rates until someone takes up the offer or they can lower their standards and pick up a dev without good prospects.

In order for this scheme to work, unions are needed. A professional union which like doctors associations would enforce ethical standards on its members and use collective bargaining to freeze malefactors out of the industry.

It wouldn’t be as good as how doctors have it, with legal weight and governmental recognition, but it would be enough.

This has worked many times. I have personally said "no" several times and many of my colleagues have as well -- and none of us were fired and none of the anti-features were built.

I'm curious how would you rather implement things like airport wifi without a captive portal?

Just let people connect to wi-fi and use it without screwing with them. I don't really understand your question.

Operating a good wifi network at scale is usually quite costly. It is a good idea in some settings to be able to monetize outsized users. For example, your first 30 minutes on the airport wifi can be free, and if you have to be there for longer than that, you can pay a fee for the next hour.

Have you never considered this scenario?

How does a captive portal help with throttling or locking out users? Is the idea that the user could just recycle their MAC and be let in again, well the same thing applies for captive portals.

In general, someone needs to take a quick look it the development time and customer support involved really can be motivated from the extra earnings. The trend is that fewer and fewer bother, and just see complimentary wifi as a value add instead.

Airports, cruise ships, and other places where it does make economic sense are better served by real things like 802.11x and per-user QR codes.

QoS, metering and caps, etc.

Can you elaborate? How to use "QoS, metering and caps, etc." to enable people to pay for their usage?

You don't. Internet should be free. For an airport use-case, it should be covered from ticket prices.

That's not free, that's paying for it in a different way.

I do think the internet should be free, but how we sustain that is a pretty viable question. APs need to be installed, configured, and monitored. When spaces grow, APs usually need to be reconfigured or moved.

I know that airlines are fairly low margin businesses, based on what I've read from the recent bankruptcy stuff. I am curious about who owns airports and what their margins look like.

idk, just leave it out? it'll work

Captive portals were around before modern browsers. The browsers made the mess not the other way around.

Respect redirects over HTTP or gtfo.