Re:Show HN: Wifis.org - making WiFi networks 'social'
by brendanib on Monday December 17, 2012 @12:23PM
(#4933234)
I believe that with nearly any ISP you're contractually prohibited from sharing your home internet connection with neighbors or anyone outside of your residence, so creating a service explicitly designed to do this is a bit of a grey area.
Re:Show HN: Wifis.org - making WiFi networks 'social'
by Major_Grooves on Monday December 17, 2012 @12:28PM
(#4933254)
yep - same as with AirBnB most people are not allowed to sub-let their apartments and let's not get started on Uber...
This is called 'disruption'.
Re:Show HN: Wifis.org - making WiFi networks 'social'
by pavel_lishin on Monday December 17, 2012 @01:09PM
(#4933462)
And it should be made clear that 'disrupting' existing businesses can get you evicted, or can get your internet service shut off.
Re:Show HN: Wifis.org - making WiFi networks 'social'
by cwilson on Monday December 17, 2012 @12:25PM
(#4933245)
Grey areas are great areas to start a business, or at least a cool project!
Re:Show HN: Wifis.org - making WiFi networks 'social'
by masukomi on Monday December 17, 2012 @02:00PM
(#4933731)
I'm fairly confident that this is not a "grey area". When something is specifically prohibited in a legally binding document that you agreed to / signed it is not "grey" it is, quite literally, "black and white". And, as the other posters have pointed out it is almost always specifically prohibited.
Re:Show HN: Wifis.org - making WiFi networks 'social'
by bcoates on Monday December 17, 2012 @07:50PM
(#4935467)
I don't know about you, but I've never signed a contract for residential Internet access. I just call them up and give them a credit card number and a few days later have a box with a live Ethernet port show up in my apartment.
I'm sure they could cut me off if they didn't like what I was doing, but they could cut me off at-will so it's not worth trying to read their mind.
Re:Show HN: Wifis.org - making WiFi networks 'social'
by fudged71 on Monday December 17, 2012 @12:46PM
(#4933342)
In this case, it might be useful to indicate how fast your connection speed and network is, to give people more information if they decide to buy access.
What about having bitcoin payment for x minutes of access to the hotspot? :)
You may already be doing this, but then you need to add/build the following:
- A way to actually take/manage payments from your neighbors.
- A way to manage access to the Wifi network (it's kind of like Lockitron for your wifi network in this way)
Once you have the idea simplified and the tools required to make this work end-to-end, as a potential user I'd rename my network to "RENT ME: Awesome Wifi Network" and see what happens.
Food for thought!