Sales of IP addresses have been common place since about the late 90's or so. I had a class C block for 15 years and had offers many times, but I turned my block into ARIN about 1.5 years ago (yes, it was assigned to me for personal use before the Internet was commercialized, they used to do this). Microsoft has done nothing different from what many other companies have been doing for years. I bet Google has bought IP addresses from companies and individuals. This story only exists because it's "Microsoft".

I don't remember it ever being $100, you probably paid for 2 years. When I got my first domain name in the early 90's before the commercialization of the Internet domain name registration was free. I had my name for a couple of years at no charge (also had a class C subnet assigned to me, which I turned back in last year to ARIN). After the InterNIC transferred from SRI over to Network Solutions (think it was 1994 or so), and the Internet became commercial, the government decided to charge $50 for domain names in which $35 went to Network Solutions and $15 to the U.S. Government. After I think 2 years or so it was determined that the $15 could be considered an illegal tax, so that was revoked leaving the standard $35 Network Solutions fee.

I also agree that the downfall of the domain name registration was when it was passed to ICANN. People may have complained about the $35, but we didn't have squatters and people hijacking names just because someone forgot to "pay the bill".

The United States is approx 100 times larger in size than Korea and over 6 times the population. This is one of the reasons why smaller countries in Asia and Europe tend to have higher speeds and can roll out a new infrastructure to their entire country faster. We have areas of our country too that have very high speeds, however compared to the rest of the U.S. it's just a drop in a bucket, even if the number of people are the size of a small country elsewhere. Other parts of our country have no Internet access, cell service, etc. Increase your country by 100 times its size and let me know how your WiMax is working then.

Since last year when a console is replaced Microsoft updates the DRM to the new serial number so that games still work without being connected to Xbox Live. I have a few friends that have received new Xbox 360 consoles with new serial numbers and their content is fine. I have no doubt that some people may have had issues if someone did not properly update the DRM to the new serial number, then they would be talking to many people from customer service to get it fixed.

I have had one launch day Xbox 360 fail back around June or July, and I did have the problem with content not working. Support did decide to reimburse all my points, however I got tired of the support person I was talking to (first person was good, this one was not) and asked to talk to someone higher up. This person knew exactly was he was doing and said it should have worked, and hen asked for the serial number and one other number (it's on the blade section where the serial number is). The next day when I connected back into Xbox Live my console was updated so all my content now worked. I was happy and did not need to points anymore, however they still gave me the points anyways "for my trouble". One of my friends console also failed a week before mine and another about a month later and they both received new consoles and all their content works for anyone on the system without being connect to Xbox Live. Another failed about 2 months ago and his is fine too.

If someone does have an Xbox 360 that was replaced and it does not allow access to the content they purchase without being online, you need to get a DRM transfer to the new console. If support does not know what you are talking about you need to talk to someone higher up then that person. The people that answer the phone are first tier and typically only handle the simple and routine problems. This is that way that every large corporation work and is certainly not unique to Microsoft.