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"This bakery's bread is OKish, but $10 is too much to pay for a loaf. But I found a cool trick: when you're offered to take a free sampler, you can actually tak

• kleiba 14y ago
  And when you're done sampling, the whole bread is gone, just like in the case of internet access, right?
  • rayiner 14y ago
    Given that GoGo is like 3.1 megabits shared between dozens of people on a plane, yeah. Also, the "marginal cost of information/bandwidth/etc is zero" is specious. You are not entitled to get things for their marginal cost. I can't take a Prada handbag out of store and leave the $50 marginal cost of the bag + $10 for restocking.
  • vtail 14y ago
    Internet access on board of a flying plane is non trivial and certainly doesn't come free: you need to install and maintain equipment on board, maintain a network of ground stations, write and debug some software, pay money to other internet providers etc. With relatively small number of paying customers (yet), you have to keep prices high to maintain the profitability of your business. Think about this: if nobody pays, they will close this service. Just like the bakery will close if nobody pays for the bread.
  • kleiba 14y ago
    For clarification: I'm not advocating illegal access, my point is that the analogy with theft is not a good one.
    • gfodor 14y ago
      What's wrong with it, exactly?
      • kleiba 14y ago
        If you steal something from someone then you'll have the item in question in your possession afterwards while the original owner does not have it any more. Access to the internet is nothing you can steal. Of course that is no justification for using the provided service without paying for it, but it's fundamentally different from theft.
        • burnstek 14y ago
          You obviously don't fly much. This is you stealing access from me when you're on a platform meant to have just a handful of paying users.
          • kleiba 14y ago
            (This will be my last post on this thread because I think I've now gotten into a mode where everyone's just downvoting whatever I say.) I would just like to point out that I said more than once that I am not trying to justify the behavior described in the original article. Maybe I just didn't make myself clear enough, or people really just disagree. But all I've been trying to say that this illegal behavior does not run under the heading "theft". The reasoning is similar to why illegal file sharing is not theft - it is copyright infringement. It is also not relevant whether a paying customer will have less bandwidth to their disposal if someone accesses the internet service on a plane for free because the paying customer would also lose the same bandwidth if another /paying/ customer would use it. Thus the paying customer would not be able to sue the one who accesses the internet illegally. The access provider could, but not for theft.
            • gfodor 14y ago
              The entire thesis of why illegal filesharing is not theft is because it is a victimless crime (presuming the pirate was not going to purchase the software anyway.) Stealing bandwidth on an airplane is not a victimless crime, since it reduces the amount of bandwidth for everyone who has paid for it. This is a pretty elementary concept and I'm not really sure why you are twisting things around so much. It's no different than if there was a 10 gallon jug of water on a desert island and you were supposed to pay $5 to take a drink, and some guy comes over and starts chugging it down without paying. That person is stealing since they are using a scarce resource that others are required to pay for.