Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!panda!husc6!harvard!caip!sri-spam!nike!styx!lll-crg!lll-lcc!pyramid!decwrl!sun!chuq
From: chuq@sun.uucp (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: Which companies pay for news?  Which companies benefit?
Message-ID: <3679@sun.uucp>
Date: Thu, 15-May-86 13:20:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: sun.3679
Posted: Thu May 15 13:20:39 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 17-May-86 04:08:54 EDT
References: <222@epimass.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: Fictional Reality, uLtd
Lines: 83

>Some of the net's biggest corporate beneficiaries are the makers of
>personal computers.  One such company is one of the largest
>corporations in the world.  Another has seven newsgroups (10% of all
>net traffic!)  devoted to discussions of its products.

>All make good products, and many people on the net want to read about
>them.  But two of the three have only leaf sites on the net, and pay
>almost no phone bills and move no news.  The third could certainly do
>a lot more.

Well, as the official "get off of Apple's Back" representative to the world,
let me point out a few things:

o Apple has seven newsgroups: 1 Apple II and six Macintosh. Of those seven,
	the apple II group has been on the net longer than I have, which 
	says something.  one of the groups has had NO traffic
	(mod.mac.sources), one has had one item (mod.mac.binaries) one is
	strictly a gateway from the ARPAnet (mod.mac) one is obsolete and
	used to be the gateway from the ethernet and just hasn't gone away
	(mod.computers.macintosh) and two are used as general newsgroups
	(net.micro.mac and net.sources.mac).

	Of these, the number of groups that were created for Apple? none.
	The none of groups that are support by Apple personnel? none.

	The number of groups that were created by me? two (net.micro.mac
	and net.sources.mac). Does that mean that I should be a gateway
	since I am the person who caused those groups to be created? I 
	have a MUCH greater role in them than Apple does.

o Apple's presence on the net right now is exactly nil (due to news
	problems). When Apple IS getting out, the only person who does
	any kind of posting to the macintosh groups is Larry, who does it
	because he likes us.  No official function, no official backing.

o There has never been a piece of software posted to the net by Apple. They
	make their software available through commerical channels only.

Joe Buck has made a basic mistake in his logical reasoning.  These groups
were not created for the benefit of Apple.  These groups were created for
the benefit of the people on the net who own Apple products.  There is a
large semantical different between the two, and it is a crucial difference
to make.  The fact that there are so many Macintoshes out there is the
reason for the popularity, just as the number of Unix(TM) machines out there
gives the reason for the popularity of net.unix(TM)-wizards.

If Apple dropped off the net today, what would happen to the Mac groups?
Absolutely nothing.  So why should Apple support it? contrary to Joe's 
comments, they DON'T benefit in any way, shape, or form. We, as users of
their machines, do.

>A cost-benefit analysis at any of these sites would show
>that spending money on netnews is a good thing.  It would be a lot
>easier for people at those sites to justify the phone bills to
>management than it would be for those who currently foot the bill.  

Wrong. I've DONE cost-benefit analysis reports for a couple of sites. It is
amazing how hard it is to get numbers an accountant will accept.  It is
even more difficult to figure out exactly what the bennies are: how much is
'goodwill' worth? how much is 'good pr' and 'visibility' worth? How much is
the enhanced recruiting and access to the technical pool worth? How much is
the perk of making netnews worth? Good questions, no answers.  When you
break it down to dollars and pennies, it gets damn hard to quantify.

Joe is making the basic misassumption that all we need to do is find a new
deep pocket to pay phone bills and the nets problems go away.  Wrong. The
problem is not the phone bills, it is the cause of the phone bills. The net
is screwed up.  incompetent users, new users, too many users.  Signal to
noise ratios in the groups pegging the meter. Even if the phone bills were 
free, the problems would still remain.  They would, in fact, get worse,
since there would be no pressure to try to solve them.

This makes as much sense as the idiots who think they can solve the problem
by kicking Rich rosen off the net.  It is misthink.

chuq
-- 
:From the lofty realms of Castle Plaid:          Chuq Von Rospach 
chuq%plaid@sun.COM	FidoNet: 125/84		 CompuServe: 73317,635
{decwrl,decvax,hplabs,ihnp4,pyramid,seismo,ucbvax}!sun!plaid!chuq

The first rule of magic is simple. Don't waste your time waving your hands
and hoping when a rock or a club will do -- McCloctnik the Lucid