As much as this might seem to be an adequate response there are some issues: 1) They are allowed to have a virtual monopoly by virtue of agreements with municipalities that prevent competitors from laying infrastructure. 2) Their are non-amortized, up front, setup costs that have been incurred. 3) In many if not most cases their is a contract term involved. They have an effective monopoly and should be regulated in the same way the the Telecoms as well as any other utility with a monopoly position is. Just in a related note, if I fail to show up for a doctor or dentist appointment there is Always a charge and has been for some time. This seems equivalent to me.

This is complete and utter BS and really needs to be stopped. My suggestion - if they fail to show in the required window, for Any reason, they are liable to you for a days pay at whatever your current rate is. To document that they did , ideed show up, in the event that the customer truly is not there (a very small probability, IMHO) they would need to show a timed photograph of the door to the residence, another with their truck in the driveway or lot and phone records showing calls being made immediately before arrival (cellular if at all possible, particularly in the case of customerss using their VOIP services) and which go unanswered. And yes even if the calls are not answered they woukld stuill be required to show up at the door, and ring or knock, may even need to require a sound recording for that.

Fuel Oxidation Efficiency in modern engines is normally > 98%
This leaves no room for a 50% improvement in fuel economy period.
About the only areas remaining for improving fuel economy in
modern vehicles are related to reduction of friction in the drive
train.

Dual Clutch Automatic Transmissions are on example of a technology
improvement that is Actually Effective.

That isn't entirely accurate, there was indeed a consequence. The result of these EBay policy changes was that people, like me, will no longer sell or buy anything using their service. They may be doing far better catering to the Home Shopping Channel demographic and more power to them but that does exclude people like me and many many others.

There have also been numerous (possibly an understatement) cases of abuse by "Trusted Editors" and "Administrators" Wikipedia is, unfortunately, a prvately owned and commercial product intended to prioduce a profit as opposed to the Scholarly, Open and Free from Undue Influence Academic Resource that it really should be. If it were non-commercial, with clear and open governance and had clear procedures for appealing actions as well as dealing with "rogue" administrators and other quasi official maintainers then it would be entirely difrferent. Unfortunately that is anything but the case.

A ball pean hammer applied vigorously to the drive spindle will render all but the most wealthy and determined effort to recover data fruitless and even then it is highly unlikely that all or even most of the data would be recoverable.

IMHO, NO, an apology is not enough, at least in this case. This student clearly was reading this book as part of an academic course and had made notes that he needed as part of that coursework. By deleting the book Amazon rendered all of his labour valueless and may well have caused real and possibly irreperable damage to him as a result of his receiving a lower grade in the class being taken. At this late point restoring a copy of the book would likely not repair said damages as it would appear due the timing to have been a summer course that has probably ended. He had entered into a contractual relationship with Amazon to provide the product purchased and relied on the terms and conditions of said purchase to pursue his studies. In willfuly and egregiously breaching that contract Amazon should and hopefuly will be found liable for both consequential and punitive damages.

Broadcast power via Tesla Coil FTW, EMF be damned!

EBay started as a means for people to sell things to one another person to person, a virtual and nation/world wide classified add section akin to that found in newspapers. This was a good and truely valuable service. What began it's downfall was the transition from what was basicly a P2P service into B2P service. As it evolved it grew to include an unfortunate collection of scam artists with little to no interference from Ebay. Buyers and Sllers alike were and are @#$%^& over by these people while EBay showed indifference at best. From there it has further evolved into the Internet version of the Home Shopping Channel while still including the scammers it had aquired along the way. Add to this the fact that EBay has continually tried to squeeze more and more blood from the little guys and you can see they wich to be little more then an collection of online storefronts. Given the fact that I would never really consider buying something from THSC even though I could be fairly certain of at least getting the questionable item being advertised, why in the world would I consider ordering one from a place that doesn't even offer that faint reassurance? The answer is ... I wouldn't! In it's present form the chances of me purchasing something via EBay is precisely ZERO. PS - I have never sold anything via EBay but did purchase a number of items before it went down the tubes so I am not some disgruntled seller. I also avoided being scammed both through due dilligence but I was probably lucky as well as there have been numerous cases where a seller/buyer with a sterling rep was just setting up for a kill.