al: I'm sure there are bigger holes. I just keep having nightmares over the fedex/container ports thing. Unfortunately, a pinprick is all they need. As the bumpersticker says: one nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day.

pat: bandwidth is not free. neither is the water you took from the restroom. a restroom in a store is not a free public convenience for you. it's put there as a value-add for the stores customers (perhaps). Same thing with the lawn. open space benches and what not are typically not put there out of altruism but because some planning commission forced the company to create Open Space in order to get zoning for their project.

I read in infoworld once a good analogy: public rest stops on highways provide FREE paper towels and toilet paper. (yeah yeah, it's not really "free", it's tax dollars yadda). It's going to stay free as long as everyone just uses it as they're doing now. But as soon as people start loading up their cars with it and taking it home to heat their houses, well then it's not going to be provided anymore. Same as with bandwidth. Which is why we'll eventually be paying for email by the byte. There's no such thing as a free lunch.