I agree. Passwords are insecure, so I've compiled a custom version of linux that just asks your username and lets you in. Saves me from fielding all those pesky "I forgot my password" calls. Works great.

So you are getting 80/20 for about $66.

I'm paying $76 for 50/10. Not quite a good, but close enough I suppose. They also offer 3/? for $30, 6/? for $50, 20/4 for $66, 100/something for $99 (I believe it's $99, they don't list it on their website -- a year ago it was $199, but I think they halved it recently).

If I wanted to limit my usage to 5 gigs a month, I could save $78 a month by dropping comcast completely, and just using my cellular provider.

The only difference would be that minimum wage would be 1/64 of a goat per hour. Or perhaps we'd all be paid in bitcoins because last I checked, that wasn't government regulated and seems to be doing fairly well.

I think the problem is that people think of the antitrust ruling as being a punishment for Microsoft including IE into Windows and stifling choice. However, today we have iOS and ChromeOS which not only include their own browsers, but they make it impossible to replace them with another browser at all, which is actually much worse than what most people think the antitrust ruling against Microsoft was for. Yet, people throw around "convicted Monopolist" around, when in reality, their perceived transgressions were either much milder than their current competition, and/or were nothing more than just being ahead of the curve.

That said, the antitrust ruling had very very little to do with IE, and more with start screens and marketing/advertising campaigns.

VP9 is *almost* as good as h.264, not h.265. h.265 is much much better than both. You need to recheck your facts.

They do. Most desktops, notebook, and smartphones have hardware decoders for the most popular format. VP8/9 isn't it.

If you want to grow wealth, the secret is simple. Live below your means. It's difficult for many to do.

Thank you halltk. So tired of hearing how something PROVES something when they don't even understand the basics of how the Internet even works.

No, I do think that people should live within their means, and there is nothing wrong with families living together. You do realize that the US is pretty much alone in the world with children NOT living with their parents, right?

Are you aware that the current US unemployment rate is just slightly over HALF the european unemployment rate, and is almost (but not quite) back to normal pre-collapse levels?

Are you aware, that if you are working a minumim wage job, and you skip starbucks, iPhones, and live with either your parents, or roommate(s), that you can indeed get by quite well?

Yes, I know minimum wage workers, all of them have iPhones or iPads, cable tv, cars, etc and don't collect food stamps or use medicaid for health care, do you?

Seriously, learn what a straw man defense is, and then go away.

The problem there is people often have an inflated sense of self-worth, or skill in any particular area. I remember reading one study that showed that when asked a large pool of people how well they knew a subject, the people that rated themselves the highest actually knew the least. As people actually get better at their field, they understood better what they didn't actually know, and rated themselves much lower.

I have really never met two similarly skilled, similarly trained, similarly experience programmers working in the same place. That however, didn't stop one of them from thinking they were as good, and often much better than the other one.

And usually the people that I find that advocate that type of arrangement are the absolute worst of the bunch. Just because they went to school, and learned nothing (or things that are mostly irrelevant), and sat in a chair in front of a computer for 20 years does not make them better than the guy next to him that lives and breathes it 24x7 for the past 5.

Supply and demand. Because if you don't like the job, you can leave, and they can replace you in a couple hours. I fail to see how that is greed when so many people are willing to work for that, and get by on it.

Sorry. Didn't read your whole message because it's based on faulty assumptions. The connection between most ISPs and Netflix is direct. The only data (or the very large majority) in that pipe is Netflix, hence why it SEEMS they are selectively throttled. I forget which other services also flow through that pipe, but you can google it.