If many people did this, then a ubiquitous global public wireless network would be created which would achieve and surpass the goal of increasing Internet access.
[1] EFF representative Adi Kamdar commented, "We envision a world where sharing one's Internet connection is the norm.
A world of open wireless would encourage privacy, promote innovation, and largely benefit the public good.
Though we anticipated a fragmented market, that extreme degree of router diversity means that we would need to support dozens of different hardware platforms in order to be available to any significant number of users, and that does not seem to be an efficient path to pursue.
Without a good path to direct deployment, EFF is deprioritizing our work on the freestanding router firmware project.