I certainly don't expect them to give it away for free. That said...
The majority of the people I see respond to these, perfectly reasonable, questions about whether Verizon will allow Tether as though that's a proposterous notion. Isn't that a bit harsh?
Sure, the fact of the matter is, VZW permitted free WiFi Hotspot for the PPP to help clear their shelves (I in fact encouraged a friend to buy this phone for that primary reason and he's quite pleased). And we've all seen other hardware features restricted on phones. One of which would be the GPS feature on phones. But, there in lies my reason for seeing this 'question' as not being completely obsurd.
My BB Storm had a GPS that I could enable for Location or 911 service. But, even when in Location mode, my Google Maps still had to find me via Cell Tower triangulation. Then, comes Android 2.1. All of the sudden, phones get FREE GPS. It is not like this is a new hardware feature. If Verizon chose, they could still be requiring a charge for the near worthless VZNavigator inorder to have any GPS support, but they're not.
So, once again, do I expect them to give us free WiFi hotspot? Nope. But perhaps we can lighten the assault on those that are hopeful.