Even if that wasn't a thing yet, WiFi chips can be bought for less than $1 each in bulk now, and companies can put a monetary value on one person's private data in the range of $1000 and up, so schemes like that are inevitabilities.

I used to look forward to global Internet coverage. While I still think it's overall a good thing, I fear the day it's ubiquitous and reliable enough that electronics are widely built to connect to it automatically without fallbacks or user input and make it nigh impossible to disable while keeping the device functional. We seem to be getting there sooner rather than later. I definitely feel less guilty about hoarding older hardware now.

I'm fairly sure that is a thing.

then my neighbor is gonna have an interesting conversation with the cops about how much illegal drugs he's been ordering over the internet. Geez man, that's not even a reasonable argument, nobody has an open wifi, it's not 2001 anymore.