Unless you're buying music and you can't find a particular track on Google or Amazon.

You forgot watching Hollywood movies (lawful DVD player, lawful BD player, clients for each country's DRM'd streaming services) and preparing tax returns.

Unless a service provided only by said "robber barons" is required to get and keep a source of income to keep a roof over your head.

So /r/carporn isn't enough transmission porn for car geeks?

If they're "high-prestige" why aren't you willing to move? It's not like you own that apartment you're renting. Move out when your lease comes up and make sure you tell management why you're doing it. Good tenants are hard to find, if you complain infrequently and pay your rent on time (less common than you'd think) they'll be sorry to see you go and will listen to your reasons for doing so.

Doesn't solve your problem in the short term but it's more effective for long term change than griping about the problem on Slashdot.

Because corporations bad, mmm'kay?

That's really the crux of it. Any argument against this ruling is immediately shouted down. I posited this question on another forum and received the equivalent of -1, Troll: Why is everybody cheering a ruling that attacks hypothetical problems (the oft discussed "fast lane" has yet to actually happen) while ignoring the actual problems that are impeding innovation? The "killer app" that started this whole argument is streaming video, so ask yourself which of these two things are a greater threat to that: The data caps that are currently being imposed or the fast lane that only exists on paper?

Many (but not all) can choose another locality.

I could do it, if I had access to the Telco rights of way that were "franchised" away to the local Cable monopolies during the early part of the 80s. We are 35 years later, and haven't improved the delivery model.

Actually, it has to do with Franchise agreements between _______ cable and the local municipalities, which is NOT Capitalism, but some bad version of utility.

Bring me fiber via local Municipality, and let me choose which set of services I can get, from whatever company that wants to offer for whatever price the market will bear. Municipal owned COLO that gives market access to any company that wants it.

No, it isn't a public utility. It is a "franchise agreement" between the Local Municipality and the Corporation. The fact that this is the way things have always been done doesn't mean it has to continue this way.

I propose that instead, we bring FIBER to a COLO, from where the citizens can CHOOSE (market forces) the options and features they desire from the multitude of companies that offer these services.

BY moving the issue of "last mile" ... to a COLO rather than neighborhood corner, it solves all sorts of market issues.

So why over the past decade and a half hasn't Microsoft added additional support in Windows Notepad for LF, on which every other major platform has since standardized?

Last time I checked (which was today), creating a Gmail account required a mobile phone number. So for someone buying a mobile phone in order to have a mobile phone number in order to create a Google account, where is one supposed to search for reviews of mobile phones? If a different web search engine, then why not just stick with that instead of using Google Search?

DigitalRiver has been providing Win7 since it went live, and is one of the authorized MS sites to download it from. Hell that's where I got my copy from when 7 was released. And when I needed a new copy, a couple of years ago to toss on a flash drive I also got it there. Now I just wish they'd put WinXP up someplace easier to find it from. I still rarely need it for air-gapped machines when something breaks and a reinstall is required.

I was building up to that. An oligopoly can have the same negative effect on buyers as a monopoly.

Let's just say that curation helps keep a flood of amateurish games from cluttering the list of new releases presented to prospective game buyers.

The relevant market here is not Windows but operating systems compatible with widely used applications. And at the time, enough of those were exclusive to for Windows that Microsoft was using its monopoly in one area (copyright in Windows) to secure or strengthen market power in other areas.

I agree. Access to rights of way is a natural monopoly that has been allocated inefficiently in the past, and I presented an alternative to this inefficiency in another post.