catcarlson

True, but that assumes that the people filing copyright lawsuits know the law and are acting in good faith. And that the recipient does, too.

If I'm an artist living paycheck-to-paycheck and I get a copyright-related cease-and-desist, I probably won't have the money or time to fight it even if I know that it's wrong.

To an ignorant person, the greenhouse effect isn't simple. Not because the idea itself is complex, but because it implies we can and should do something about it.

And ignorant people would rather tell themselves it's not man-made because that would mean we can't fix it and, therefore, don't have to.

See Ian Danskin (if you haven't): https://youtu.be/dF98ii6r_gU

Two bad reasons:

• If the system doesn't get it's money back, you can use that as justification to cut funding because it's "not profitable". Never mind that most city services aren't...
• Police can use "lack of payment" as an excuse to kick poor people out of the system whenever they want. Transit systems tend to allow this under the belief that people who can pay the fare will refuse to ride with people who can't, but anyone that snobbish won't be on transit in the first place.

One less-bad reason:

• Systems can use fare payments to get data on routes: how often they're used, at what times of day, etc. Metrics are important to justify your position in the city budget. Of course, there are other ways to do that which aren't as harmful to poor riders.