[fauigerzigerk]

Here's a list of countries by number of broadband internet connections: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_...

Now, if you like you can work out the intersection with countries that have access to a similarly complete selection of movies at comparable cost to what Netflix offers in the U.S.

You will quickly find out that your "handful" of people is in fact hundereds of millions of people.

[ceol]

That really does nothing to disprove my point that people who can't afford movies (either purchasing, or importing, or renting in iTunes) are also extremely unlikely to be able to afford broadband internet and a modern computer and be knowledgeable enough to handle a cloud-based torrent client.

[Kell]

I've lived in part of the poorest region of Brazil in 2004. Most people I knew in middle class could afford at least a computer good enough to download things on emule or kazaa (BT was just starting to get popular but was still more geeky by then, where I lived) ... And I was impressed by the pirating knowledge... People who barely knew how to use Word and Excel, could download, or had a son who knew how to do it. Yet they couldn't afford to consume movies and music at the normal price. Because of extremly High tariffs, cultural goods where more expensive than in the US or Europe. And yet salary was much lower...

Broadband was expensive too, but 512k was something like 60$... And because internet access had so much more use than just consuming cultural information, people would prefer to get it and save on something else. Like the dvds that they would get by pirating.

Before 2002 when Broadband access was excessively rare... Most people would just buy pirated dvds from the flea market... For 5 $ or less. They where ready to pay for them... but at a lower price than what official goods where... You never bought dvd for youself except if you were wealthy or to give them as gifts.

[leoedin]

The cost of providing an internet connection tends to adjust to the market. There's countless testimonies on this thread to that effect. The different regulatory environment, lower cost of labour and less entrenched monopolies in less developed countries mean that connections are cheaper.

Knowledge is basically free. Anyone with an internet connection and a PC made in the last 10 years (not particularly hard to come by, even with very little money) can be knowledgeable enough. Equating wealth with knowledge is foolish.