It always was ever thus. Companies like Rolls Royce, Gucci and most of the retailers in the West End of London make money only from the affluent. The same could be said for owners of cruise liners, managers of hunting estates and wealth fund managers. In fact, most of the economy works by supplying goods and services to the rich.

On the other hand, many people make a living from the poor. Developers of social housing, discount retailers and energy companies are just a few examples of very large businesses that make a tidy living from selling stuff to people who are lower down the income scale.

According to Wikipedia, many reptiles including dinosaurs have/had gizzards.

There would be no need to watch every packet; there would simply be a need to put in place risk-based, technically achievable procedures that would have a reasonable chance of detecting activity that is against UK or international law. It's not against UK law to send a joke about Mohammed, so ISPs would have no responsibility for that. HTTPS is not easily inspectable at a packet level, so there would be no responsibility for that, either - although it might be reasonable to other matters associated with HTTPS traffic such as the end IP addresses and the volume of data transmitted. If you took the financial services model, backbone providers would be able to rely on measures taken by the consumer's ISP, so the internet would not be shut down.

You have identified no falacy[sic] in what I'm saying here.

Banks are common carriers of money. Most money transmission is legitimate, but all banks are required to have systems in place to detect whether any particular transaction is associated with criminal activity. If banks do not have these systems in place, their directors are subject to personal fines and possible prison sentences. The rules are rigorously enforced by the FCA.

How is an ISP's common carrier service conceptually different from what banks do?

Of course. So this becomes a question of pragmatism. If it can be demonstrated that the cost of enforcement is lower than the cost to society of the criminal activity, presumably you agree then that ISPs should be required to support law enforcement?

Two questions, so two answers. First, reporting limits are rarely stated; if they are, they are certainly not the real reporting limits. It would be an offence under the UK's money laundering regulations for a financial institution to publish the criteria that they use to detect potential criminal activity.

Second, it's true that cash can be used to circumvent the regulations, but cash can't be used to buy most of the things that big-scale criminals want to buy. If you attempt to buy a house with cash, your lawyer will report you to the national crime agency for investigation. If you buy a luxury car with cash, the same thing will happen. If you attempt to purchase a luxury holiday with cash, your bank will likely report you.

If you sat in the back of a taxi and casually wiped blood off a dripping knife, the taxi driver would probably be prosecuted as an accessory to your murder. A great deal of criminal activity on the internet is just as flagrant.

You don't get what I'm saying. If you make a shed-load of cash by selling dope on the streets of Britain, your bank would stand to profit if you used that cash to buy stuff with your credit card. The bank provides a money transmission service, but it has a legal obligation, enforced by prison sentences for non compliance, to seek to identify and report cash movements that appear to be related to criminal activity. As a result, your dope-selling business is likely to be busted.

ISPs provide an information transmission service. Can you explain why money transmission should be subject to laws that require criminal use of the service to be identified, while information transmission should be exempted from any such requirement?

Who said it was easy? I certainly didn't. It's not easy for banks to identify financial transactions that relate to criminal activity either. But they try, and, over time, get better at it. 10% enforcement is better than 0% enforcement. 20% enforcement is better than 10% enforcement. When did a cry of, 'It's too hard!' ever become a reason to give up on something? Should we stop looking for murderers who leave a scant trail of evidence, for example? Are you scared of progress?

You can make a reasonable argument for saying that intellectual property should not be protected by the criminal law. But, for as long as that legal protection exists, it's hard to escape the irresistible conclusion that it should be supported by a legal environment that's similar to other criminal activity.

Did you read what I said. There was a 'knowingly' in there somewhere.

Banks are required to have systems in place to prevent their payment services from being used for money laundering purposes. Haulage companies are required to have systems in place to prevent their lorries from being used by illegal immigrants. Fertiliser distributors are required to have systems in place to prevent their products from being used for bomb making. Munitions retailers are required to have systems in place to prevent their guns from being used by crazed psychopaths.

ISPs provide a product that is widely used for criminal activity. Can you explain why they are any different from banks, haulage companies, fertiliser distributors or munitions retailers. As a hint, though, your desire to engage in the criminal activity supported by ISPs is not a good response.

So the driver of a getaway vehicle has no responsibility for the bank heist committed by his mates? And the trader in stolen goods down the pub has no responsibility for the burglary carried out by his mates?

There's a widely accepted principle across the UK legal system that people who knowingly facilitate criminal activity must share responsibility for that criminal action. It's not immediately obvious why a different principle should apply to ISPs.

More maths: Scotland has a population density of 67 per sq km; England has 407.

It's easy to rely on renewables when you have loads of land.

I like to think that Amazon couldn't care whether its programmers are female, male, black, white, straight, gay, Democrat or Republican: in any sensible world, a company simply hires the best it can find. If few women are applying, or if women are discouraged by interviews with no opportunity for a bathroom break, that's only a problem for Amazon if it's struggling to fill positions.

The original article fails to pick up on the real risk to Seattle, though, which is economic. History suggests that individual businesses rarely flourish for decades. Some time in the future, Amazon will hit on hard times; when that happens, Seattle will have a crisis. The risk is that by 2030 Seattle becomes like Detroit, the former coal mining communities in South Wales or the old mill towns in northern England.

It's not good to put all your eggs in one basket.

I think the terms might have different resonances on the two sides of the Atlantic. When I mentioned a libertarian bias, I'd assumed the term would broadly also include the Democrats. I guess I misunderstood something!

My point about reading and engaging widely outside your own group still stands, though.

And therein lies a major problem with internet discussion sites like this one. Birds of an ideological feather often flock together in one happy internet roost, and very easily lose complete sight of any world view other than their own. Much as I enjoy reading the debate here and on sites that appear to reflect a similar demographic like arstechnica, I definitely feel the need to temper the libertarian bias I see here by also going to places that are more likely to articulate the importance of business, finance, politicians, the establishment and religion to national life.

It's not healthy to only read things that you agree with. If you're from the USA and you're not one of the tiny minority who hit the Republican button, I hope that you broaden your mind by also looking elsewhere for comment and debate from a right wing perspective.