Technology

Internet shutoffs shouldn't be a thing, outside of non-payment or legitimate abuse. If I do something illegal, they should have to sue me, not shut off my internet.

I guess even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Sometimes people do the right thing for the wrong reasons.

If you disconnect them you can charge them fees

A lot of it is the sheer bureaucracy of chasing down actual pirates and weeding them from people who just happen to be on the same IP address.

If one guy visiting an apartment block downloads a torrent from a public connection, what is ATT supposed to do? Shut down Internet to the entire building?

This is an undue burden for ISPs, even if the content isn't living in a gray zone of legality.

Ohh for sure, they know that if they get rid of the pirates, they'd lose half their customer base and will struggle to pay the CEOs bonus.

Well,

a) even the labels and studios pirate stuff that isn't theirs. They don't really believe what they preach.

b) All that content they produce involves unethical treatment of the actual creators and technical staff who are under-compensated, and often lose all rights to their own creative work. and

c) regional blocks are just marketing bullshit, and is the primary thing VPNs advertise they'll circumvent for you.

A day is going to come when the VPNs are going to be targeted for regulation.

It's only a matter of time before someone shoots up a school with a 3D printed gun or Epstein's a terabyte of child porn to a Senator's office or some other silly bullshit, and then VPNs will become the whipping boy for our litany of problems.

Yeah, but ISPs are rich and VPN providers are not. The most recent numbers I can find for Cox (2020) show $12.6 billion in revenue.

Not water baloons, but some companies will cut off your water if you're sharing it with a neighbor. (especially if that neighbor had their water cut off for not paying a bill)

Or Nestle asked your water utility to disconnect your service because you're drinking free water instead of purchasing theirs. Not a direct correlation but closer.

I was thinking, imagine the media companies demand the power company turn off your power because you downloaded a pirated movie. Or gas stations stop selling gas to you because you speed.