Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!unisoft!bdt!david
From: david@bdt.UUCP (David Beckemeyer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Quick ST II Challenge!
Message-ID: <5948@bdt.UUCP>
Date: 25 Oct 90 01:04:06 GMT
References: <58392@microsoft.UUCP> <1990Oct20.045209.21823@rodan.acs.syr.edu>
Reply-To: david@bdt.UUCP (David Beckemeyer)
Organization: Beckemeyer Development Tools, Oakland, CA
Lines: 50


[ I'm not including text from any of the articles on this thread to
  keep this message short.  Refer to the referenced articles if you
  haven't followed this discussion. ]

I just want to say that flaming on both sides of this "Advertising
on the net", "Atari users are cheap", and "wasting bandwidth" debate
is getting out of hand.

Often it seems that the people that complain the most about incorrect
use of the net are the very people that are getting the net for free,
and have nothing to do with paying the usenet bills.

I am the site admin for our site on the net.  The net isn't "free" to
me by a long shot; I write the checks each month. Yet I still
appreciate how much is done free-of-charge by all the upstream sites
that forward mail and news for me.  I know how much the total cost
of each message must be by the time it's sent everywhere.  But I still
feel that small "commercial announcements" are no big deal.  Anything
done in a reasonable way (short and sweet), seems perfectly OK to me.
Of course, this attitude will offend many net "purists", but I still
argue that these aren't the people paying the bills.  I certainly
should have more say about what constitutes abuse of the net than
an average reader, becasue I at least have to pay to run my site and
I pay for all its network connections.

Also, don't forget that the ST market is small.  There's only so
many developers and only so many products.  I know that if somebody
comes out with a new product, I like to see an announcement on the
net.  I am more likely to see it and read it, than if it appears
in an ST magazine.  Many small companies can't afford to advertise
large enough and often enough for me to catch their ad, so a small
net posting might be the only place I see mention of the product,
especially since the ST magazines are so awful about getting
press releases out.

On the other hand, I think Darek needs to mellow out a bit.  Those
of you that saw my postings from a few years back, may have noticed
quite a change in tone and content (I hope for better).  I know at
one time I was in a lot of KILL files :-)

Anyway, in summary, I think a few of you are jumping on Darek a little
hard, and I also think that Darek has been a little hot-headed too.
Both sides may have valid arguments, but they're getting lost in
the shouting.
-- 
David Beckemeyer (david@bdt.UUCP)	| "I'll forgive you Dad...  If you have
Beckemeyer Development Tools		| a breath mint."
P.O. Box 21575, Oakland, CA 94620	|    Bart - "The Simpsons"
UUCP: {uunet,ucbvax}!unisoft!bdt!david	|