Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!ucsd!ogicse!milton!cyberoid
From: cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Reciprocity and Cyberspace, paper for "Civilizing Cyberspace" Meeting
Message-ID: <1991Jun23.054806.22193@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 23 Jun 91 05:48:06 GMT
References: <1991Jun21.151901.16656@milton.u.washington.edu> <1934@airs.com>
Organization: Human Interface Technology Lab, Univ. of Wash., Seattle
Lines: 22


Clearly I'm not the free marketeer that Ian Taylor would hope me to be.
The free market is a clever little term used for disguising a system
that permits choices to be made by those with the most resources to
begin with.  Then the smaller buyers get in line.

I believe that USENET is about as close as we have come so far to a
reciprocity-based conferencing system.  It doesn't permit me to pay my
bills by wire, of course, but otherwise it does allow me a chance not
only to see into the workings of the beast but also propose changes to
them, and implement them if I can, with the agreement of others.  The
WELL offers similar and perhaps greater reciprocity, although one does
not set the price of service or have an absolute choice over conference
hosts.

The systems that absolutely bore me and also cause me qualms, considering
the lessons they're teaching hundreds of thousands of users, are the big
commercial systems, about which no one knows very much and about which
absolutely no one is asked.

Neither a capitalist nor a communist, I'm just a rawbone democrat.
--