They didn't care whether people really needed them, they would simply persuade them that they did, in order to make the sale. In the Information Age, we seldom expect to make revenue from selling the appliance. Telephone operators will give you equipment for almost no cost, because they want you to make phone calls. They make their revenue through usage. In the telecoms business there are two models for revenue growth.
Information Appliances are all about encouraging usage.
Wireless carriers make their revenue from encouraging usage of internet enabled phones and PDAs. Let us make no mistake that usability and usage are directly related. The harder something is to use, the less people will use it. In fact a bad experience with a service may encourage a User never to try again. So the operator can claim to have a large number of subscribers but if usage is low then they really aren't making money and the large subscriber base is essentially useless.