Sometimes people do the right thing for the wrong reasons.

A lot of it is the sheer bureaucracy of chasing down actual pirates and weeding them from people who just happen to be on the same IP address.

If one guy visiting an apartment block downloads a torrent from a public connection, what is ATT supposed to do? Shut down Internet to the entire building?

This is an undue burden for ISPs, even if the content isn't living in a gray zone of legality.

Internet shutoffs shouldn't be a thing, outside of non-payment or legitimate abuse. If I do something illegal, they should have to sue me, not shut off my internet.

I had to process these requests at a company I used to work for. They do send "proof" (proof in quotes because you have to believe in good faith they didn't just make it up, which I have to believe they didn't).

We never shut anyone off though. We worked with business exclusively and only ever sent "scary" letters. Though we had one client that was a major music venue (a very known venue that's pretty famous) who would get these letters all the time. The irony was too much for me. I ended up calling them personally most of the time because it was too funny.

Their game is just to try to make the ISPs liable; they don't actually want it enforced. In fact, failure to enforce is the feature. They paint the ISP as complicit in the piracy then sue the ISP for hundreds of millions in damages hoping for a no-fault settlement. That's a much better revenue stream than suing someone for 10k who can't pay it.

Not water baloons, but some companies will cut off your water if you're sharing it with a neighbor. (especially if that neighbor had their water cut off for not paying a bill)

Or Nestle asked your water utility to disconnect your service because you're drinking free water instead of purchasing theirs. Not a direct correlation but closer.

That this is even legal in the first place is insane. Digital communication is at least as vital, if not more vital that postage. Image someone is just banned form getting post delivered or he gets throttled to only once every other week...

enforcing piracy

NOTICE

YOU HAVE NOT MET YOUR MONTHLY PIRACY QUOTA

YOU WILL BE TERMINATED,

THANKS.

It's without a doubt motivated by their own loss of revenue but a consumer friendly take is still commendable

Nope, they just don't wanna be bothered. But if it's a win it's a win.

A day is going to come when the VPNs are going to be targeted for regulation.

It's only a matter of time before someone shoots up a school with a 3D printed gun or Epstein's a terabyte of child porn to a Senator's office or some other silly bullshit, and then VPNs will become the whipping boy for our litany of problems.

Well,

a) even the labels and studios pirate stuff that isn't theirs. They don't really believe what they preach.

b) All that content they produce involves unethical treatment of the actual creators and technical staff who are under-compensated, and often lose all rights to their own creative work. and

c) regional blocks are just marketing bullshit, and is the primary thing VPNs advertise they'll circumvent for you.

Reform copyright