MarketWatch's John Dvorak wrote a column today suggesting that citywide Wi-Fi networks won't offer free access for long. His argument is that there simply isn't sufficient economic justification for maintaining that kind of offering.

"If you get free municipal Wi-Fi, use it and enjoy it while you can," Dvorak writes. "It's simple economics, and there is no such thing as a free lunch."

But at Wi-Fi Networking News, Glenn Fleishman lashes out at Dvorak's allegations, calling them "wrong, wrong, wrong!"

"If everyone offers free wi-fi, how do you charge for it?" Fleishman writes. "You can't. Clusters of coffeeshops now all offer Wi-Fi for free rather than some offering it and some not, or some charging. In Seattle, an early Wi-Fi and coffeeshop culture mecca, I've seen many many cafes switch to free Wi-Fi because they couldn't get paying customers -- and paying customers harass baristas about service being unavailable, too."

Personally, I'm on Fleishman's side, but only time will tell who's right...