In an interview with BusinessWeek, SBC (NYSE: SBC) CEO Ed Whitacre calls the internet companies freeloaders:
How concerned are you about Internet upstarts like Google, MSN, Vonage, and others?
How do you think they're going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?
The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!
Frankly, this is absurd, akin to the silverware-maker lashing out at the food companies (But they're using our forks!) or the music companies wanting a cut of the iPod. Oh wait. When you're product is sold to the consumer you can't then go and charge the companies the consumers are using. If SBC tries to make any serious moves in blocking Google, MSN, Yahoo, or Vonage, it would be a major boon for the cable companies.
Equally preposterous and amusing was a recent argument put forth by Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake:
And the biggest interestingness freeloaders of all have to be the ISPs -- all this interesting content provided by me, Anil and everyone else is the reason millions of Americans monthly DSL bills.
Ok, not gonna bother.
(Found via Techdirt)
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