I think the advantage would be FREE, google is all about FREE to the user, as it gets more users to see ads that are paid for by business.. Thats was there whole move on the FREE wifi in select cities. They could then direct ads based on your location.. as they know within about 300 feet of where your at based on what WIFI access point your are using.

Google has a brilliant ad based revenue stream.. if they an tap into local ad revenue then there going to make more money the only way to do that is show local advertisers that there are customers nearby that are using there service. The way to get users to use it in masses is offer it free. Its a model that works.. This is exactly what they did with there search system.. they built a killer search platform built it to the point that it was used by huge numbers of people.. then they went and said, hey we got xxxxxxxxx users per second.. what to advertise?? the advertisers said heck yeah...

Basicaly if you can track what users are looking for you can direct pertinate advertising at them, its more effective than TV where your broadcasting to a mass of people and only touching a small percentage of interested viewers.

Its the same reason websites that deal with hardware reviews etc have ads for hardware.. they have a captive audience. If you know exactly what a user is doing on the net at all times you can start offering some highly directed ads to them.. and sales from those directed ads will be higher and thus command more cost from the advertiser.. thats what google wants higher priced ads to fund there company.

If Google offered free wireless internet for the entire US how many people do you thing would sign up? I would bet almost anyone that could use it would use it.. thats a huge subscriber base when you think about advertising.

I don't know if you have gmail but there advertising in gmail is very good, there very directed to the subjects in my email, I actually kind of like the advertising its kind of a RSS feed of what out there in context to what I'm actually doing. When people see advertising as freindly assistance.. thats when you know a company is doing a dang good job..


For example, I open a email about Ron Paul and the adverts are for his running mates.. I open a email about offroading the adverts are about offroading.. It's quiet amazing actually. There system works very very well. There trying to take it one step further.

Does this make more sense now?