Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!psuvm!art100
From: ART100@psuvm.psu.edu (Andy Tefft)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: For sale: -- GS system
Message-ID: <91024.221556ART100@psuvm.psu.edu>
Date: 25 Jan 91 03:15:56 GMT
References: <7355297@ub.cc.umich.edu>
Organization: Penn State University
Lines: 27

I personally like seeing for sale ads here, since I don't really
read the forsale groups since I am not particularly looking to buy,
however once in a while something will come up that I am interested
in that I might have missed were it not posted. As long as it fits
the group (no mac stuff, for example), I have no complaint.

Whether or not ads are against a charter of any group or the policy of
any particular site, I don't see how anyone can complain about
non-commercial posts along the lines of "I have xxx that I am wanting
to sell. Please send me e-mail for more info." Well, I guess you can
complain if you say that strictly speaking it is an ad, but
if there is no profit involved, what's the big deal? Please, nothing
about the ENORMOUS cost of transmitting one person's one-line
ad all over the world, since it is a TINY percentage of even just
this group's traffic... let's see, 100 bytes at 300 baud (worst case)...
takes 2.6 seconds to transmit, at about 25 cents per minute that's...
1.08 cents max for one site to transmit it to another, and
assuming 100 people per site I'd say that on average each
person who ever pays a cent toward usenet traffic pays .01 cents.
hmm, a small portion of the total message traffic costs (I'm ignoring
overhead like electricity, storage, hardware costs because these
are just that, overhead, and will be paid regardless of whether
or not that one message is sent).

And consider, this little discussion has cost more than your
average for sale message and is worth a small fraction of what
the average for sale message is worth. Go figure.