anpalton

They are not seeking to ensure portability between different kinds of services (and Azure has Linux VMs by the way)

But portability between, AWS, Google Compute, Azure, Rackspace, Softlayer, Nephoscale, Linode, Digital Ocean, etc would be quite beneficial.

The analogy is false. One of the problems with what Icelandic banks were doing was this:

"The rules prevent banks from posting their own debt as collateral (Central bank of Luxembourg). The three banks circumvented this rule by posting each other’s collateral at the CBL. This process is known as issuing ‘love letters’. However, CBL later restricted this type of funding. This, however, continued in other places such as Central Bank of Ireland (CBI)."

From: http://financetrain.com/how-icelandic-banks-funded-their-ris...

Really? No, the experiment does not "change the odds of a coin flip". It could maybe change the odds on each choice that the subject of the experiment makes. But even that isn't new. People's choices aren't 50/50 to begin with (due to cultural and social reasons usually).

""When a tree falls in the woods and no one's around, does it make a sound? Well, is there money in it for me either way? No? Then I don't care." Life could be made so simple."

Again. Really? Yes, life could be made so simple. It's called idiocracy. Let's stop arguing philosophy, arts and literature unless we stand to make money. How have we managed to transform money from the means for a working society to the ultimate goal for our social actions is beyond me. But since there is no money in finding the answer, who cares right?

And private prisons aren't going to help with this at all. Now we'll have people lobbying for even more prisoners and stricter laws, just to get their business growing.