Government is rather good at infrastructure. Companies are not so good at it. Why do you think Cable Companies are so bad in terms of customer support. Because they need to manage this infrastructure. That means they will keep the more profitable zones in better condition, or zones where they have some competition with. But in other areas where it is a profit loss zone, or they know customers don't have an alternative, they will just do the bare minimum. Government infrastructure seems to value the last mile user a bit more. Making sure they get their coverage as well.

Not necessarily.
Pay may be part of it. However there are other motivations. The degree of artistic control, Sometime a fancier title means you get more say on your ideas. Creative types are known to take positions for less pay where they have more control of their work.
Inclusions at the C level meetings. Sure meeting are boring, and most of us really don't want to be there. But it is sometimes nicer to get the information before it becomes a surprise, and have the power to shoot down stupid ideas earlier.
Sure Apple is a huge player. But Google may want Ives, or Samsung, or Sony. Perhaps some little known startup company will get him.

My view is they should split up the infrastructure and the content providers.

Perhaps the municipal governments having control of the infrastructure, and we can have a choice of ISPs and other content providers.

"Publish or Perish", Degrees that require new original ideas, Strict hierarchy structure...
Academic institutions are culturally stuck in victorian times. So if you want to work up, get the choice projects and research, you need to publish. The more your publish, the higher the chances you will move up. Because there is so much published material, people don't read it much, so they found that they can get credit for half ass work.
Your name becomes your brand, so when you try to get a grant your name+institution you will work for will get you the grant money.
There isn't any reason why Say State University of New York Buffalo can't get a grant to study seismology, but chances are it will go to University of California Berkeley not because they will do a better job, but because of the name.
Finally institutions haven't learned how to deal with today's political climate with the attempt for breaking news. Every Hypothesis is sold to the public as a new Theory... Then if that Hypothesis is shown false (as it is common in science) then the media who may have a political slant will go and say see Science is Wrong again, just like our political stance has predicted!

Science for the most part is quite work, collaborating with like minded people, with checks and balances to try to filter out strong egos. But it has gone commercial so these checks and balances are weaken as strong egos will win out.

The US always pays its debts when they are due. I think perhaps the problem is you don't understand how US debt works, and why it is a bit special:

So the most important thing to understand is the US doesn't go and beg people to give it money, rather it auctions debt. People come and purchase the debt. You can do it yourself on their Treasury Direct site. The US sells debt instruments to interested buyers. They are bid on, and whoever bids the lowest interest rate wins. The upshot is the US sets the terms of the debt instruments sold. They have a variety, some are as short as 4 weeks, some as long as 30 years. When you buy something, the terms of repayment are stated up front: What it'll pay, and when. There is no provision to cash out early, and you don't get to dictate any terms, you just choose what note you want to buy (if they are available).

This is how public debt works in a lot of countries, but it isn't how things go when you are getting loans from the IMF.

The other important thing is that all US debt is denominated in US dollars. A US debt instrument specifies how many dollars it'll pay out and that number is NOT inflation adjusted, except in a few very special cases. Well the US government also controls the US mint, which makes US dollars. So the US government can literally print money, and inflate its way in to payments. There are negatives to that, of course, but it is perfectly doable. The US controls its fiscal and monetary policy regarding its debt. Since all its debts are in US dollars, and since US dollars are the world's reserve currency, the US cannot face a crisis where it can't pay, unless such a crisis is internally generated (via the debt limit).

Not the case with Greek debt, it is in Euros and Greece doesn't control the Euro.

Finally, there's the fact that the US has great credit. Doesn't matter if you disagree that it should, fact is it does. Investors are willing to loan the US money for extremely low interest rates because they see it as a very safe investment. 4 week T-Bills have been going for between 0%-0.015%. 30-year bonds have been going for 2.5%-3.75%. Investors bid the interest rates very low because they desire it as a safe investment.

Now now, environmentalists only live where there is a temperate climate, thus have no need to consider the finer details of real world application. Those who have real world needs are just wrong or corrupt.

Scale: charging your phone with 5 volts compared to a car at 120/220 volts.
Safety: that much current floating around means if a child wanders in the wrong area they are fried
Efficiency: If it is half efficient to charge our phones. No big deal its conscience makes up for the cost. But to power a car you will feel the extra cost. Besides you get a electric car because it is better for the environment and if we need to create extra coal plants to power these cars its carbon footprint gets bigger.
Reliability: a car goes threw a lot of stressed. Rain, snow, ice, wind, salt, bugs, animals nesting in it.

It isn't the same as making a wireless charger to charge a 2 ton cell phone.

There is a New York state law banning male daycare teachers from changing diapers.
There is a strong preference in custody cases that the child will end up with the mother, even if she isn't nearly as fit to parent.

There is actually more of a written inequality against men then woman.

If the power goes out you don't Fallon a hard surface.
This takes a lot of power and I don't see a big tank for fuel. So I expect that was its range.

There is a lot of energy to lift itself and say 150lbs of person.

In Minnesota, the public sector is mandated by statute to release information to the public and be setup in a way which facilitates this action:

https://www.revisor.mn.gov/sta...

13.03 ACCESS TO GOVERNMENT DATA.
Subdivision 1.Public data. All government data collected, created, received, maintained or disseminated by a government entity shall be public unless classified by statute, or temporary classification pursuant to section 13.06, or federal law, as nonpublic or protected nonpublic, or with respect to data on individuals, as private or confidential. The responsible authority in every government entity shall keep records containing government data in such an arrangement and condition as to make them easily accessible for convenient use. Photographic, photostatic, microphotographic, or microfilmed records shall be considered as accessible for convenient use regardless of the size of such records.

I have used this exact quoted statute many-a-time to force local government agencies in Minnesota to not only provide me information, which they were usually willing to do, but for free or very low cost.

I made a request once to a public transit agency who told me it would be several hundred dollars to do. I told them if they had followed the statute to make the data readily accessible by the public, it wouldn't require the work they were trying to charge me to do. Their legal counsel informed them I was indeed correct and I got it for the cost of the media.

Maybe there is a similar statute in this case which drove the decision?

There are many cases where even republicans go on record stating man made climate change.
It is basicly the Oil industry who is trying to keep the doubt about it.
So the politicians Democrat or republican (mostly republican) who come from the Energy Producing states. Will play onto the spew to keep themselves elected.

Politics are not Pro- or Anti-Science. It is weather the science is political useful for them or not. Otherwise they will be happy putting their head in the sand.

DRM codecs are a feature, it allows you to access more sites. Some people are out to make software and not always a political statement.
However adding custom adds doesn't seem to help the end user out in any way.

Wasn't the fact that Opera when it released a free version, use to have a spot for Opera based adds. Which was one reason why it never really got any serious interests.

In contrast with other languages...

I find a better IDE for different and I was like, how about that, this makes it easier for me to write code for the language.

If back in the day where you had GWBasic

Ok
LIST
10 PRINT "HELLO"
20 GOTO 10
Ok
15 PRINT "WORLD"
Ok
LIST
10 PRINT "HELLO"
15 PRINT "WORLD"
20 GOTO 10
Ok
15 PRINT "WORLD!"
LIST
10 PRINT "HELLO"
15 PRINT "WORLD!"
20 GOTO 10
Ok
RUN
HELLO
WORLD!
HELLO
WORLD!
HELLO
WORLD!
HELLO
WORLD!

If we had that type of IDE today the program will fail miserably. However you take the same language and give it a new IDE then you could in theory make an Enterprise class application in GWBASIC.