The Makah people of the Olympic peninsula are getting a heavy dose of the internet, courtesy of the B&M Foundation. I noticed they're "putting in a Starbucks hotspot" and later noticed that Starbucks "hotspots" are a paid service courtesy T-Mobile. Charging for wireless access, I am convinced, is a practice that will not last long, as coverage areas will get larger and bandwidth will get cheaper, so that before long metropolitan areas will be completely covered (in small towns it might not be hard to come upon someone who is leaking WiFi far into the heather). However, as the present situation is bound to continue for at least a few years, it's worthwhile to consider for a moment.

At first it seemed rather sensible that Starbucks would charge for its wireless access, since the whole concept of the place is basically to charge suckers for cheap stuff, when they could go to the local place next door with the freaky paintings on the wall, that uses Equal Exchange beans, and the dude behind the counter has a nail through his nose. At the local place, you're not just paying $3 for a few ounces of coffee beans, you're paying $3 for a few ounces of coffee beans and the opportunity to be in the presence of a man with a nail through his nose. That's a value propsosition, if you ask me, and so the fools who enter Starbucks might as well be charged for their wireless, as long as we still have plenty of local establishments.

Then I remembered that Starbucks achieves a certain kind of economic efficiency, that kind which is supremely valued in the global financial ecosystem: so valued, in fact, that it has every legal and ethical right to convert the local establishment into a Starbucks, if it can only arrive at a favorable rate of purchase. The free market argument would have it that a small business has a right to exist under its own values, and even a glory in so doing. But the balance sheet, as we know, leaves off certain unmeasurable quantities (piercings and freaky paintings, for example); and a balance sheet which grows at 1% per year is exactly half as good as one that grows at 2%—therefore the free market wants that little fish to be eaten by a bigger fish, so that both fish can grow at 2% and, of course, make all the world's people 2% happier each year. Ay, there's the rub, isn't it?