More interestingly, how can a company that basically runs the internet be so bad at using the internet?

Yeah, but don't forget that these Westboro shitheads are basically the real life equivalent of internet trolls. As such, the proper response if you want them to go away (and I think we do) is to ignore them. Arresting them just makes them martyrs and puts their name in yet more papers.

I'm not saying that ignoring them is the morally right thing to do here, just the smartest.

I didn't see him/her making that point.

The copyright holders already have copyright. Regardless of the moral arguments, copying a piece of media that you don't have the copyright for is illegal. As you pointed out, that is well and good and we already have laws set up to punish those who break it for better or worse.

What I don't agree with however, is eroding our rights to give copyright holders a bigger stick to beat people with. Especially when there is such a long history of big business using various laws that were written for other purposes to reduce competition and other shenanigans.

I have no problems with how they spend their money... right up until they accidentally hurtle a metal-rich (read: very 'heavy') asteroid into the earth.

Just like how some people might have problems with a local billionaire announcing "I'm going to build nukes, launch them into space, and detonate them for fun."

This is pure conjecture on my part, but my assumption is that the creators and the servers it runs on live outside the US, which is also the reason they ignored the lawsuit. Just like TPB happily ignoring (and proudly displaying) all the various nastygrams sent from US lawyers over the years.

It's perspective, and furthermore the English language allows for large leeway when you consider things like context, tone of voice, body language, etc.

Ask a millionaire how they are doing, and he may answer fine.
Ask some hungry kid in a 3rd world country who has only ever known hunger, and he might very well still answer "fine".
Ask somebody who just had a heartattack how they're feeling and you might get an overly sarcastic "oh just fine." Or maybe even a sincere "great" if they're happy to be alive.

I would not call any of the above people liars, even though their present situations are vastly different.

Oh, and don't forgot that America wouldn't exist if not for its military, so he should pack his bags and move to the arctic.

Hey look, I can create logical fallacies too!

It seems you don't understand what an IP address is.

But hey, congratulations! Your understanding of how the internet works is on par with most of our politicians and lobbyists. Perhaps you have a new career opportunity?

Hit 20GB for a couple months in a row and let me know how that works out for ya.

But who metas the metacops?

We're all adults (or close enough to it, anyway) here. I think we're all capable of seeing the word "shit" without our faces melting like that nazi who peeped in the ark.

My apologies to everyone who is now having their face melt off after reading that previous sentence.

I agree with your point, but I think you have it backwards.

Google is a global private company. The simple fact that Google is "forced" to obey the laws of China if it wishes to operate there is actually a perfect example of Schmidt's point. Currently China has power over Google, but little power over the global internet itself.

He's basically trying to prevent the internet from following in Toutube's footsteps.

It makes sense to me. How many dictators can a country have?

If a country has multiple people in some form of power, they will typically expend a decent amount of their resources towards removing power from their rival and granting it to themselves.

Even in countries like the US, where this sort of behavior is somewhat contained by the Constitution, you can still say there is X amount of political available because there are those boundaries set up between the branches. That wouldn't work if each branch had unlimited power by its very definition. Besides that, you still have political parties trying to undermine each other in the name of granting themselves more power.

Oh? And do I get some kind of discount on my bill each month for this? Otherwise, all they're doing is upselling the bandwidth even more than they already are.

Most "normal" people don't get close to their 2GB caps. If they use 200MB normally, and watch Netflix on Wifi, they will likely end up paying more for this when Netflix has to raise prices.

So basically, your argument would only work if everybody routinely hit their caps and/or AT&T only charged by the MB.

At least he has one option. That is still more than some in the US get.