Besides a cult, everyone knows the Watchtower is a business disguised as a religion. From a business viewpoint, I would certainly hate or lobby against those who dislike my product and warn other people of my product.
I made a calculation based on information from JWFacts, and the results are just astounding!
http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/statistics.php
In there, there's a statistic that shows that if the growth from 1980 to 1997 was kept up, by 2012 there would be 12 million JW's. Currently that number is 14 million JW's, and they are 8 million.
This means that, not only has the internet cost them 6 million followers, the internet has cost them BILLIONS in contributions. How much, though?
I know that average contributions in the US are around 1000 dollars per year per publisher. Considering not every country is as rich as the US, I decided on an average of 300 dollars per year per publisher, worldwide. My numbers may be wrong, so I made a calculation using 100, 300, 500, 700, and 1000 dollars per publisher per year. This is how much they have lost to the internet and apostates:
If the average contribution was: 100 - They would have lost: 4.27 billion since 1997
300 - 12.82 billion since 1997
500 - 21.36 billion since 1997
700 - 29.92 billion since 1997
1000 - 42.74 billion since 1997
So the biggest money crunch is NOT the lawsuits; it's the lower number of followers.
KEEP THE GOOD WORK UP!! NO WONDER THEY INSTRUCT THE JW'S TO HATE US!! ;)