Because maybe two people live in the same house and only have 1 pc?
I remember using that excuse about 10 yrs ago right after I first got onto the internet.
I had gotten into a HUGE flame war and debate with a producer out in LA who was purposely misleading people (in what we were unaware of at the time) an attempt to rile up actors to promote his movie. It worked like a charm. Every single one of us fell for the bait, and engaged in a very heated discussion, which is quite the understatement, ...especially when your talking about a bunch of disciples of the Meisner technique. {lol} To further inflame an already volatile situation, his writing style was that of an uptight, anal retentive, passive aggressive type ...ya know the kind... that make you just want to wring their necks? He claimed he was refusing to even read the response and urged readers not to read it either, unless I spoke to him in a more respectful manner.
Being as stubborn an individual as I was, my pride prevented me from altering my writing style to suit him, ...but at the same time, it was crucial to get the information out there for the benefit of the other readers who were being misled with his inaccurate information, ...so I created a gimmic account to calmy and respectfully provide my proof. I figured it would feed two birds with one worm. I could present my argument, and still save face. Well, wouldn't you know... all the readers spotted my gimmick right off the bat, and wanted to know why I shared the exact same IP as my gimmick.
I was a complete and total computer newbie at the time, and had no idea what an IP address was, ...let alone a static IP address, which is what I had being on cable.
I soon realized that as a computer newbie, I was in waaay over my head and tried to duck out of it ASAP. I didn't know what an IP was, ...but figured it must be something unique coming from my computer. I just knew that whatever explanation I gave had better be one that could support such a scenario. As luck would have it, prior to sending the message through my gimmick account, I emailed it to myself to make sure the header info {name & edress) looked like it was coming from a completely different person (stupid, prideful and silly I know, ...but he really frosted my cookies and I wasn't about to give him the satisfaction). There was nothing I could do about the similar ISP and I wasn't really all that concerned about it anyway 'cause at that time, everyone in the US & Canada on cable had the same ISP.
My gimmick explained to the board that we had the same IP addy because we were roomates and shared the same computer. Then I forwarded a copy of the email my gimmick sent to me, as proof we were two separate people. I then disappeared from the venue for a few days, and allowed readers to weigh the evidence my gimmick had presented. When I did get back to the board, they had read my arguments, ...and I had nothing but apologies waiting for me for some having accused me of being my roomate. My gimmick was immediately retired 'cause I knew I didn't know near as much about computers as I needed to to pull that off.
{Phew} I really dodged a bullet there.
To make matters worse, a newspaper columnist had picked up the thread and started writing an article about it in conjunction with a movie release taking place at the time. Luckily, he could only refer to me or my gimmick by the names I had created for both. Dodged another bullet on that one too. {sigh} Oh the good ol days of complete anonymity...
I still haven't completely figured out this computer thingy... It was just 2 weeks ago I learned how to secure my wireless. I couldn't figure out why or how a Mac computer kept connecting to my internet.