I shoveled a TON of quarters into Dragon's Lair back in the day. Game play sucked (it was all about learning the right timing to push the button or move the joystick) but the animation rocked. Don Bluth was (and still is) a genius storyteller.
I sucked at Discs of Tron.

When I did public affairs on surface ships we would get a daily news feed (not the Early Bird) in daily message traffic that provided news from the AP Wire that was considerably more well-rounded then the DoD-specific news in the Early Bird. You don't get that under the sea?

The point is that with Google News I can have google setup curated clipping services for all of the same keywords that military public affairs staff members used to aggregate sources to create the Early Bird. There is nothing in the Early Bird that can't be replicated using publicly available tools at a greatly reduced cost to DoD.

The only way in the foreseeable future for you to have a pay-once watch-everywhere service would be DRM free. There are too many players trying to monopolize the digital content market space. You basically have to choose an ecosystem and be willing to stick with it... or repurchase your content.

And what they get affects what we get.
The industry may be too 20th Century... but it uses a specific model of distribution that is designed to maximize profits:
1. Theatrical Release
2. Release to pay-per-view
3. Release on DVD followed by rentals.
Today, most films are released direct to bit-torrent as soon as they hit the theater (or sometimes even before the theatrical release.)
The "stupid, industry-imposed restrictions on how and more importantly when" people are allowed to consume content are necessary to make the system profitable. Without profit there won't be content. The key to making a profit is repeat purchases: People who see a film in the theater who later purchase the film on DVD/BluRay and who may go on to purchase the "special edition" or "director's cut" when that is released.
Even if the industry were to start providing DRM-free purchasable content available at retail or by download at the same time as a film hits the theaters (the only way to overcome the restrictions on how and when you view the content) most current illegal downloaders would still resort to bit-torrent with the excuse that the content is too expensive.

Someone else noticed that, huh?

In the meantime, while you are enjoying your "superior service" you can thank me for having the content available in the first place. It's people like us who consume content through legitimate outlets that make it possible for the shows to exist in the first place. If everyone resorts to piracy then producing valuable content becomes a loosing proposition. No dollars no new content.

Replacing all of the Space Camp infrastructure is prohibitively expensive. Besides what would they replace the Shuttle with? The Constellation program was cancelled and there is always the chance that the next U.S. President will just cancel the current President's vision for a manned space program. You could replace all the Space Shuttle stuff with a simulation of the ISS but you'd probably hit the ISS's end of life (2020) before you could get all the Shuttle stuff replaced at Space Camp.

Remember; the shuttles have only been retired now for a little over two years. You can't expect NASA on it's shoestring budget to completely renovate a non-mission critical facility like Space Camp to reflect the reality that the USA's manned space program has an uncertain future in that short a period of time. All Space Camp can do right now is look to the past because whatever future there may be to look forward to is amorphous right now.

Steve would have made a great snake oil salesman himself. Marketing genius.

I just like wearing magnets because I think they are attractive.

I could switch to T-Mobile... but owning using a service that doesn't have coverage in most of the area I live/work/travel in is counter-intuitive.

If I weren't "perfectly fine" with knowing that Google reads my mail and potentially shares it with the government. If I weren't, then I wouldn't use their services. Anytime you use an online service you are granting the service provider access to all the data you share with their service. And if you think that the Government can't use its police power to access that info also then you really are naive.
If you continue to use online services while being discontent then that's on you.

No I am not a "naive fool." I'm a well informed one. There is a big difference.

Wow.
I'm not saying that the entire infrastructure has to be zero cost. Duh.
The question is who will be paying for the infrastructure. The end users are going to form some kind of consortium? And even if they do then you still have to be able to trust the other members of the consortium not to tap your data.
Think on it.
If you can.

If the entire chain is open... who's paying for the infrastructure? Who will build the cellphone towers? Run the copper to your house or link the fiber between substations? Until I see a real-world example of private individuals circumventing the entire rest of the communications infrastructure from one end of the chain to the other... I remain skeptical. The closest example is AMPRNet, but AMPRNet is still used to connect to the rest of the communications infrastructure.