I've travelled in many places in mainland Europe, the 4* hotels eg. Eden, Mercure generally don't have free internet while the cheaper hotels and B&B will have internet. The US tends to be the same, expensive Hiltons with no free wifi while the YMCA has free wifi.

I'm guessing that most of these four star and better hotels target business customers who have the deep pockets of the corporations to pay for internet access while smaller hotels target people paying with their own money.

I would argue however that a lot of tourist info on Malaysia is still available from the typical RM70 guide book, not from the internet. We still don't have a good equivalent of yelp (although LYN comes close )

Yes but in room internet is still bloody expensive. I'm in a starwood hotel room right now, thank god for reliable 3G