Opening a payment channel between parties can be automated easily. Their wifi has an id it broadcasts (say a bitcoin address). A WOT that you access over 4g tells you if they're worth paying. You send a bitcoin transaction through the 4g or a a direct signal to the wireless station and then announce the payment (will process faster if they have the payment and can veryify unspents). You exchange public keys (possibly tied to those bitcoin accounts) and use it to do a diffiehelman key exchange. Now you're talking.
[–] HoneyNutStallmans ago
Like I said, the only problem is that each channel costs a fee. The more indepdendent APs there are around, the more fees you have to pass.
[–] luckyguy ago
You don't need to connect to every AP and you would do it prorated by bandwidth used. I guess you would want it to be only partially automatic because you wouldn't want this thing connected to every hub as you drive but you could pull out an app and say I want to connect to the most reliable station. By automatic I was just saying you shouldn't need to go through some manual pay wall that takes credit card.