Another thing to consider is how it looks. Hotel patron sees hotel's free wifi (why should they care that it's not the real thing), but everytime they try to connect, the connection fails. "Man, this hotel wifi sucks, full signal but I can't connect!"

On the other hand, you're also saying that people shouldn't care as much about security if they are on the proper wifi network, which is a little ludicrous. Just hope on a vpn either way, and you're safe.