Xref: utzoo comp.misc:11428 comp.org.eff.talk:1451 alt.censorship:1231 Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!ccwf.cc.utexas.edu From: awessels@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Allen Wessels) Newsgroups: comp.misc,comp.org.eff.talk,alt.censorship Subject: Re: Prodigy Special Offer hits my mailbox... Message-ID: <44013@ut-emx.uucp> Date: 11 Feb 91 15:13:32 GMT References: <1991Feb6.141621.9765@javelin.es.com> <1991Feb11.061828.20234@looking.on.ca> Sender: news@ut-emx.uucp Reply-To: awessels@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Allen Wessels) Followup-To: comp.misc Organization: The University of Texas at Austin Lines: 22 In article <1991Feb11.061828.20234@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes: >This is unfair to Prodigy. Compuserve charges more than $12.50 per hour >for any usable baud rate (if you call 1200 or 2400 usable) and so a mail >message that takes 2 minutes to write costs over 40 cents (compared to >Prodigy's 25 cents after the first 30 messages) to write and also costs >money to read, perhaps around 8 to 10 cents if you deal with it in under >30 seconds. The two services are not comparable. You are required to type messages online with Prodigy. You are limited to 4 "pages" of 40 column text. With CompuServe, you can use any number of telecomm packages to automate your sessions, including software provided by CompuServe. The speed of sending an receiving mail is limited only by your modem speed. I use both regularly. The only reason I use Prodigy is that I have friends who use it and it isn't connected to any other service. To write that "2 minute" message, I generally have to waste more of _my_ time waiting for the brain-dead Prodigy software to trudge over to e-mail. I find Prodigy's censorship offensive and their marketing misleading in the extreme. I've offered my time to friends to show them show to use other services rather than see them waste $13 a month.