Richard Bridge asked:-

When you have to choose between the internet connection, and a meal, Vic, what then?

Well, you would go for the meal, obviously, but I wonder if this is a fair and realistic question. I'd imagine that there are a lot of people like me on Mudcat who are retired and living on a not very big pension who, nevertheless, clearly have an internet connection. Two of my best friends are unemployed and on-line and likely to retain their computers.

Anyway, it's not just internet connection that I was talking about

In the decades when I was working in schools, I was always asking the pupils what music they were listening to, and if I liked what they were talking about, I would ask them to borrow their LPs/CDs. In this way, amongst a lot of rubbish, I first got to listen to Bob Marley, Madness, UB40, The Police, Ian Dury, Tracy Chapman and a lot of other music that I thoroughly approved of and could speak to the kids about. In the last years before I retired, my question about what music they were listening to would be likely to draw a blank look and the explanation that they were spending their pocket money on software for their Game Boys or whatever the current hand-held hardware was.

If these youngsters were not listening to music they were unlikely to have the musicians that they admire to attract them to "do it yourself" music.

.....And by responding to the socio-technological aspect of your initial posting rather than its political points, I was hoping for sanity, because going down the political route on Mudcat never seems to lead to a sensible discussion.