Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: EFF and Prodigy
Message-ID: <1990Dec17.195846.6364@looking.on.ca>
Date: 17 Dec 90 19:58:46 GMT
References: <1990Dec10.211625.9536@eff.org>
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 61

In article <1990Dec10.211625.9536@eff.org> mkapor@eff.org (Mitch Kapor) writes:
>	Although EFF is not involved at the moment in any activities 
>directly relating to the Prodigy dispute, we believe that the dispute 
>touches some basic issues with which we are very concerned, and that it 
>illustrates the potential dangers of allowing private entities such as 
>large corporations to try and dictate the market for online electronic 
>services.
>

My personal opinion is that the EFF can do little but stand (almost)
wholly behind Prodigy on this one, as distasteful as that may sound
to some.

It is my impression that one of the EFF's goals is to get lawmakers to
realize that electronic publication deserves all the rights and
protections that more traditional forms get.

That means full first amendment protection for electronic publication, and
no government interference.   We must realize that the 1st amendment to
your constitution is a double-edge sword, however.  You must be prepared to
vigourously defend the right to publish in ways you don't like.

Prodigy has made it clear from day 1 that they view themselves as an
edited publication.   I feel it goes against what I feel are the EFF's
principles to even suggest to them what they should or should not publish.
The EFF should be fighting for their right to publish and operate as they
see fit.   Only the market and the will of Prodigy's owners should influence
it.

(I do not say that Mitch was attempting to tell Prodigy what to publish
and what not to.  I merely say that I think the EFF's role should be to
defend their right to make that decision.)

The one mitigating factor here is that Prodigy made a serious mistake and
actually told people to take discussions into E-mail.   They did not realize
how much traffic that would generate, with some users sending thousands of
messages per day.   So we can sympathise with those users who were told to
go to E-mail and later told that this avenue would only be open to them at
a high added cost.   But this was a bad business decision, and nothing
more, in my opinion.  It will lose them customers.

Many people don't realize the economics of offering flat rate service.
Flat-rate services only pretend to offer unlimited use.  They do this under
the assumption that few, if anybody, we really take them to the limit.
If too many people take you up on it (as happened with PC Pursuit and now
Prodigy) you just can't offer flat rate any more.  It's a fact of business
life.

The problem is that computers magnify this difficulty.  With a computer
you can use far more of a flat rate service than a human being could alone.
Thus PC-Pursuit broke down when people started making permanent connections
or running USENET feeds.

We can, of course, encourage Prodigy to offer a more unrestricted
service.  In fact GEnie, where I am a SYSOP, is getting a lot of mileage out
of the fact that their new flat-rate service offers things that are more a
forum than a magazine.   But it must be up to the market, in the end, to
decide between Prodigy, GEnie and a zillion other forum services of all
kinds.
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473