So, I was reading the “Great Users” thread, that went way off on an ethics tangent, and I want to talk about this from a different perspective.
I pretty much know nothing about wifi service (I?m still paying 15/month for my doggone slow dialup), but doesn’t anyone else think that the ISPs who are selling this bandwidth would be kind of mad that one (person/family/house) is paying for the service, and someone else is getting access to the service? I’d think the company would want each of you to pay.
I can remember in the early days of AOL (when I was still naive enough to use that ISP) thinking: “I bet there are plenty of people out there who don’t use all of their allotted screen names…why can’t I just have one of theirs?” (Similar to my theory of: There are so many millionaires out there…can’t I just get one of them to slip me $100-$200K?) 🙂 Let?s just call up Steve Case and ask his opinion. Or, if you hate the big names, consider it was your local Joe Schmoe ISP, would that make it any different?
I know there are holes all through this line of thinking (i.e. only one user could be connected to AOL at any given time, and millionaires are all greedy and never want to share), but I am getting some ‘red-flags’ from my conscience when I consider using a service that someone else is paying for.
Can anyone else think of other analogies (good or bad) that would relate to this? (stealing/borrowing services)
