I absolutely love WiFi, and wish every mobile device had it, but I can easily see how it would appear useless in their original vision for the Kindle.  Anything that is useless, is of course cut for cost reasons.<p>Remember, the 3G modem really was only used in the first place so you can seamlessly buy books from anywhere, on the go.  Anywhere there is WiFi, there is almost always 3G/1Rtt, and WiFi is more complicated for the uneducated consumer than an on-off connection as simple as cell phones.  All the user even needs to know with cell phones is "I have reception" or "I don't", instead of signal strengths of different networks, what key &#38; kind of key to use, what networks are not safe, and so on.<p>Let's not forget one of the common reasons for hybrid 3G/WiFi usage is to avoid billing on the cellular network.  Notice, that problem is gone for the end user with the Kindle.