do you want wifi with that

Near my work several Caffè Nero have acquired Sip and Surf Wifi access points, now this is quite tempting, but I went on Friday and just didn't find the justification to go online. Simon Waldman has been discussing the slow growth of Wifi in the UK and points out my perfect scenario, free wifi with purchase. This is available in the UK, in places like Benugo, but sadly there is not one near me.
So I am left in a dilemma, my personal laptop I can't connect to the BBC network, yet I can blog from work, I can use webmail too, so there is no real reason to pay for internet access. It would just be nice, but probably not 20 quid a month nice and at £5 per day for a one off access I'd not even consider that.
Wifi is a deeply tempting way to access the internet, but seems to be destined to stay a home phenomen for the time being. Certainly I don't think that there are sufficient people like myself, who might pay to get serendipituous access to the internet. I can usually wait til I get home or go back to the office. Who else carries a laptop daily, students maybe, but 20 quid a month is quite a bit of money, on top of mobile phone and home internet access bills. Passing trade is not enough of a traffic provider.
So maybe cafes should take the lead from Benugo and offer free Wifi like they offer free sugar, certainly the cost per month of running a Wifi access point is not great. If you try to scale it though it becomes a cost sink and you end up charging the fees that Sip and Surf want to charge. The title for this article comes from the news that MacDonalds are going to offer Wifi access with every happy meal. It is a way to get people into the cafe, I'd buy a second drink after eating my food.
I suppose none of this is terribly original and has been said on Wifinetnews etc many times before. My realisation on Friday was personal, if a cafe near Bush House offered free wifi with purchase I'd have lunch there a couple of times a week and I'm sure that there are many people like me.
UPDATE: I've since discovered that this is the title that Wired also used for this article, which is linked in a comment from Simon Waldman's article above. the Wired piece, by Paul Boutin, covers much of the same ground, though from a US angle. I didn't conciously nick the title, but was also surprised to read the Wired article today, I must have scanned it last week.