Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uunet!bfmny0!tneff
From: tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: UUPSI's new rules
Message-ID: <61034439@bfmny0.BFM.COM>
Date: 27 Mar 91 09:41:44 GMT
References: <5060@lgnp1.ls.com> <8640@rsiatl.Dixie.Com> <40584@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff)
Lines: 22

In article <40584@cup.portal.com> AMillar@cup.portal.com (Alan DI Millar) writes:
>What is implied above is that the only one you can talk to with the PSI 
>"leaf contract" is SiteC.  Give me a break.  Of course you can talk to
>SiteA and SiteB and _the_rest_of_the_world_.  What PSI is saying is that
>they won't accept traffic through you between --==>> SiteD <<==-- and
>the rest of the world.  

That's what they're telling us now, informally on the net.  It's not
what you actually sign.  What you sign says: "No electronic mail from
another organization should be sent or received through UUPSI."  Really!

I only make a point of all this because... this is what it's going to be
like, more and more, as capitalism hits the Net.  You're going to see
this odd mix of practices and personalities impacting things.  The press
release replaces the RFC.  Profit margins, and strategies for
maintaining them, begin to take precedence over basic connectivity and
flexibility of the net.  The founding net paradigm -- everyone investing
a little of their resources in order to reap rewards of creativity and
edification -- turns slowly inside out: information will now be doled
out in restricted, metered driblets, for the direct enrichment of the
supplier.  That would never have built the Net we have today.  It will
take years to demolish it, but I advise readers to watch for the signs.