Xref: utzoo comp.archives.admin:80 sci.econ:3986 Newsgroups: comp.archives.admin,sci.econ Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!clarkson!grape.ecs.clarkson.edu!nelson From: nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson) Subject: Economics 101 Reply-To: nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu (aka NELSON@CLUTX.BITNET) Organization: Clarkson University, Potsdam NY Date: 21 Jun 91 11:01:42 Message-ID: In-Reply-To: worley@compass.com's message of 21 Jun 91 14:27:06 GMT References: Sender: usenet@grape.ecs.clarkson.edu In article worley@compass.com (Dale Worley) writes: Up until now, The Net has been like the Hippie Movement. We get a great playground, while businesses and the government pay for it. The trouble is that The Net is not just a plaything anymore. If we want to have it become an "information infrastructure" for the country, it's got to grow much, much larger than it is now, and it won't be able to live as a parasite. It's got to go commercial, and that means that people are going to have to pay for their usage. You mean we don't pay for it now? Does that mean somehow we're not paying $20,000/year to NYSERNet? Ahhhh, you mean pay-per-usage. set Pontification-mode=on When a shared resource is not being overused, flat rates work fine. People prefer flat rates. When that resource becomes scarce, either the flat rate must rise to increase the resource, or pay-per-usage becomes necessary. The timing of the transition from flat rates to pay-per-usage is difficult. Whole books have been written to explain the previous paragraph, so I don't expect you to absorb it all at once. set Pontification-mode=off Now, when you decry those who think information should be free, you are partly saying that you don't like flat rates. That's fine, but I think you'll find yourself in the minority. -- --russ I'm proud to be a humble Quaker. I am leaving the employ of Clarkson as of June 30. Hopefully this email address will remain. If it doesn't, use nelson@gnu.ai.mit.edu.