Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!usc!apple!bionet!hayes.ims.alaska.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Info Needed on Prodigy Service Message-ID: <14574@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 11 Nov 90 20:46:44 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Lines: 52 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 809, Message 3 of 6 Today's {SJ Mercury} had a scathing editorial on Prodigy and also included a concise cronology of events leading up to the latest fracus. Some time back, the service had a version of "newsgroups". There arose some spirited discussions and debates between religious fundamentalists and gay people. You know, the stuff that you see debated ad nauseum on TV. The Prodigy czars decided that this would be offensive to their reference "little old lady from Pasadena" and pulled the plug on the discussion group. The enterprizing users discovered a way around this and a way to keep the discussion away from the Prodigy censors. They formed "mailing lists" (a la TELECOM Digest) using the e-mail service of the system. When the Prodigy dweebs discovered this, they broke their "flat rate promise" and announced the charging of $0.25 for each message over thirty in any given month. Conveniently, this would only affect the "mailing list" people. When the mailing lists started buzzing with discussion of this latest outrage, the Prodigy morons started pulling the plug on users. Users hinted that a boycott of Prodigy advertisers might be in order, and things really got nasty. "We're not going to post something designed to destroy our business." Users who mentioned "boycott" got their accounts pulled. Prodigy gestapo have repeatedly said that the service is a private business. It is their toy and they will play with it any way they like. Apparently, they have decided that it is to be an online shopping service and nothing else. And from what I've read, it is inferior to simply using a catalog's 800 number (as least it's more expensive, if not slower). If this is "what the PC was invented for", then you can take PCs and... I have a question: is it true that the Prodigy interface doesn't allow any of the material that comes in online to be printed or saved as files? If this is the case, then what ever benefits over and above an online "shopping channel" the system may possess would be pretty well negated. I ask this after having just seen a Prodigy commercial that touts an online encyclopedia. If you can't print anything, then I would assume that you would have to have an awfully good memory or be able to write fast. Is it all as bogus as it appears? Do you "really gotta get this thing"? John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !