Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!bloom-beacon!jik
From: jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: The Rape of Usenet (an alternative view)
Keywords: The wholesale capturing of Usenet by GEnie
Message-ID: <1989Dec21.024040.25157@athena.mit.edu>
Date: 21 Dec 89 02:40:40 GMT
References: <946@crash.cts.com> <6576@brspyr1.BRS.Com>
Sender: news@athena.mit.edu (News system)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 41

In article <6576@brspyr1.BRS.Com> tim@brspyr1.BRS.Com (Tim Northrup) writes:
>I disagree; GEnie represents an economical medium for the transfer of
>information.  They don't charge you based on the information you get
>(other than for special services), only for your connect time.

  It is irrelevant what the specific charges are for.  The fact is
that if people are reading the postings that are gatewayed to GEnie,
then GEnie is making money off of them, and GEnie got them for free
(except for transportation costs; by "free" I mean they didn't pay the
people who wrote them), and GEnie is not in any way giving the people
who wrote the original messages part of the profit they are making.

>But they [FSF] charge you for the tape when you want a new copy of Emacs, do
>they not?  So what's the real difference?  GEnie charges you for your
>time on their modem, FSF charges you for their tape.  In both cases they
>are charging you for the medium and the support costs, not the information
>(unless you consider the other costs indirectly charging for the info,
>in which case FSF, uunet, stargate and all the rest are doing the same
>thing).

  FSF charges to cover the cost of the tape and the cost of copying
it.  They do not charge to make a profit; that would be completely
against what they stand for.

  GEnie charges to make a profit.  Therefore, you just can't compare
GEnie to FSF.

>A lot of people already pay through the nose!  How does your site get
>the news feed now?  You must pay some kind of transport costs (phone
>calls, modem charges, internet fees, disk space costs, whatever).
>
>USENET IS NOT FREE!

  Yes, but as I have said in a previous posting, when you pay for the
phone, or the modem, or the Intenet, or the disks, you GET SOMETHING
BACK.

Jonathan Kamens			              USnail:
MIT Project Athena				11 Ashford Terrace
jik@Athena.MIT.EDU				Allston, MA  02134
Office: 617-253-8495			      Home: 617-782-0710