Fire extinguishing

As the post itself and the commentaries evolving from it proved to be too incendiary, I deleted my post about internet provider AT&T planning to cap monthly volumes to either get rid of, or at least get more money of, the 5% of users they say use 50% of their bandwith. I'm sorry if it appeared as if I was calling every heavy internet user a pirate, that was certainly not my intention, even if P2P filesharing is unarguable one of the top sources of internet traffic.

There is a pervading myth on the internet that the companies making money from making operating systems, software, providing internet services, or producing content like music and videos are "evil" if they don't give away all of that for free or at least under cost. I am a capitalist, and proud of it, and don't agree with that point of view. As I get paid for in my day job for inventing stuff, I have a strong belief that innovation costs money, and the same is true for the creation of content. If people are not willing to pay for technology and content, then innovation will dry up, and content will be reduced to amateur writing (like this blog), amateur videos and music.

I do know that having a capitalist opinion on a anti-capitalist platform is difficult. Nevertheless I insist on my right to have an opinion. You do have the right to disagree with me. You do have the right to voice your concerns about the downsides of the capitalist system, and the abuses of that system, which certainly do exist. You do not have the right to tell me that I'm stupid, don't know what I am talking about, haven't researched the issue properly, am not entitled to an opinion because I'm not American, or that I should stick to MMO reporting. If you don't want to read my opinion about politics, technology, or the capitalist system, feel free to skip those posts. If you want to read them and disagree with my point of view, state your own point of view without attacking my point as being invalid. There is no such thing as one universal truth about subjects as who the next president of the USA should be, or how the business model for internet providers should look. There are only opinions, and my opinion is exactly as valid as your opinion.

If flame wars errupt on this blog, I will make use of my right of censorship to extinguish the flames, either by deleting individual comments, or by completely closing or removing the discussion. On the day where I feel that I can't freely express my opinion at all any more, I will stop blogging. To those of you who are threatening to unsubscribe if I continue to express non-MMO opinions that you don't agree with, I'm still waiting for a good explanation of how that is going to hurt me, as you neither pay any subscription fees nor generate any advertising revenue for me. If you, my readers, manage to shut me up, I'm afraid it's your loss, not mine.