Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!bu.edu!wang!elf!lee From: lee@wang.com (Lee Story) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Prodigy ... Message-ID: Date: 8 May 91 16:09:07 GMT References: <1991May1.051734.24594@pcserver2.naitc.com> <1991May1.215612.2978@ruacad.ac.runet.edu> <1991May2.160352.8928@craycos.com> <52328@apple.Apple.COM> Sender: news@wang.com Organization: Wang Laboratories, Inc. Lines: 46 In-Reply-To: cep@Apple.COM's message of 2 May 91 19:42:23 GMT In article <52328@apple.Apple.COM> cep@Apple.COM (Christopher Pettus) writes: Until electronic mail is made into a common carrier, with the same restrictions and rights that other common carriers have, this problem will continue. I'm glad that someone else thinks this would help, though in an age of Republican anti-regulatory sentiment, and with the number of Libertarians and related critters on the net, I'm not surprised that it isn't given serious consideration here. The advantages of a single uniform, reliable and universally accessible long-distance email system would probably outweigh the disadvantages of additional bureaucracy, additional cost, and a few usage restrictions. Yes, I'll admit that it might become the captive of vested economic interests (as the airwaves have become under the FCC), but even that (choke) would be preferable to the current situation, where UseNET and the Internet are the provinces of software developers (lucky us) and university faculty, and the commercial services are inadequately interoperable and lack essential features like netnews-style open bulletin boards. It appears to me that to the average educated person electronic mail and electronic discussion is the obscure province of afficionados, mostly technicians and academics, and is decidedly not the "information appliance" that it should be by now. Who knows? Readily-available email, complete with directory services, bulletin boards, and other ancillary services might inspire a revival of epistolary writing. Other disadvantages of common carrier email services should be discussed, such as the probability that the NSA would be able to more easily compel the carriers to monitor politically-sensitive communications (but more easily than on the government-sponsored Internet backbone? I'm not at all sure that's true). We would also have a constant battle against censorship of personal material (but the voice carriers and Postal Service have a pretty good record of providing non-content-sensitive service, and besides, we already have that battle -- thus EFF, etc). Comments? -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lee Story (lee@wang.com) Wang Laboratories, Inc. (Boston and New Hampshire AMC, and Merrimack Valley Paddlers) ------------------------------------------------------------------------