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It says you can prevent piracy by:

> writing a completely server-side application like World of Warcraft or Mint

But that is not true! World of Warcraft has lots of "private servers" where people play for free.

But the pirating is minimal compared to user base.

I don't get why he mentions Mint as well, since Mint is a free product (right now, that is). Can't pirate something that's free..

I guess if you block ads you're "pirating" Web apps. And unlike with software, the marginal cost of serving a user is nonzero.

However, mint has no ads, doesn't charge for the iPhone app I use all the time, has never spammed my account in any way... the only thing mint probably does make money from is commission from banks for referring new customers, but if mint can provide unbiased information about why switching from one bank account type to another can give me some sort of benefit (and in my limited experience, it has), it's a mutually beneficial relationship.

I am aware there are costs to providing a service, but when you provide them at no cost to your customers, that is not piracy.

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