It seems extremely likely the government could have proved that Megaupload was built on copyright infringement. But instead they're just going to come out discredited, making it harder for such actions to succeed in the future.
All that's happened here is that they've taken down one player among many, and their ability to get the rest is lessened. That's not what they wanted here.
1. the intimidation factor of the US government willing and able to do anything to any company over "intellectual property", including foreign ones, even if it falls well outside the legal jurisidiction of any state.
2. forcing the hand of foreign jurisidictions to expedite US government processes to carry out these types of activities on pain of economic issues, e.g. the infamous trade blacklists, or other on-going diplomatic relations.
3. the acquisition of assets and resources for the federal governments budget (this runs into billions every year that is siezed).
4. minimum total resource usage for highly effective results means that very little political or judicial capital risks being spent. Someone somewhere in government has likely benefitted greatly from this outcome or certainly will in future even just for the potential to recreate the same type of results.
5. the creation of precedent that causes jurisidictions formulating their own domestic rights and justice system around new technology to reconsider what is the norm or what is pragmatic based on global "standards" or actions. This is particularly strong pressure for English-speaking/Anglo countries.
All this without judicial oversight and no domestic political repurcussions because of the accepted plutocratic culture of the US.
If this had been the actions of China or Russia against a US company, e.g. against Google/Youtube, I wonder how people would have felt then...
TL;DR. One could say this is about as "ideal" as it gets: "we, the US government, can get you anytime, anywhere, for anything with little effort or reason - laws are irrelevant".
On the other hand, this has shown people that the Megaupload business model was very profitable (which was a surprise to many, certainly I didn't think it could be).
People who feel themselves sufficiently hidden from the US government, or just don't care, are going to come along and create a raft of similar services to fill the same space.
It seems extremely likely the government could have proved that Megaupload was built on copyright infringement. But instead they're just going to come out discredited, making it harder for such actions to succeed in the future.
All that's happened here is that they've taken down one player among many, and their ability to get the rest is lessened. That's not what they wanted here.