Sure, there are plenty of internet cafes. And it's possible to get your e-mail on your phone. If I really wanted to I could've written this blog post with my cell phone (maybe without the nice picture).
Here's the difference: Hulu.com is out of commission and NBC.com leaves you in the desert out to dry. In America, both of these sites host TV shows on the internet for free (the catch: there's about 5-10 minutes of commercials per hour long show). But, neither of these sites works in Egypt. If anyone knows why, I'd be interested to find out. My theory is the additional ad revenue that these companies would get is not worth their time paying lawyers to examine non-western countries laws in order to create a legal service.
Hulu and NBC are shrimp compared to iTunes. But, iTunes has the same problem. According to the terms of use, it's illegal to download from the U.S. iTunes store from outside the U.S. Now, people in France might be mad because that means they have to pay a Euro per song instead of a dollar. It's different for people in Egypt (or most countries for that matter); they can't download anything.
Luckily, there's a beautiful loophole. iTunes relies on consumer's credit card address not IP address. This loophole is pretty common knowledge and Apple could fix this problem in a second. So, why doesn't it. I think they're just turning a blind eye. Apple is happier with $42.99 in its pocket and I am happier a season pass to the third season of Heroes.
Of course, there's the black market of downloads. I've heard that limewire works perfectly fine (I've never used it, so I wouldn't know). My Egyptian friends have showed me sites where you can download newly released videos. The videos are a little shaky as they come from people who video tape movies in the theater, but they have Arabic subtitles, so watching a movie is like studying.
So that's the internet. Same old thing just with a little less services.
