Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2(pesnta.1.3) 9/5/84; site epimass.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!tektronix!hplabs!nsc!csi!epimass!jbuck From: jbuck@epimass.UUCP (Joe Buck) Newsgroups: net.news Subject: Re: Which companies pay for news? Which companies benefit? Message-ID: <226@epimass.UUCP> Date: Fri, 16-May-86 13:01:25 EDT Article-I.D.: epimass.226 Posted: Fri May 16 13:01:25 1986 Date-Received: Mon, 19-May-86 06:12:04 EDT References: <222@epimass.UUCP> <3679@sun.uucp> Reply-To: jbuck@epimass.UUCP (Joe Buck) Distribution: net Organization: Entropic Processing, Inc., Cupertino, CA Lines: 72 In article <3679@sun.uucp> chuq@sun.uucp (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: >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... But there is little practical difference between the two. By providing an expensive medium for Apple users to communicate and share software, free, the backbone sites provide a huge subsidy to Apple. > 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. Almost every site on Usenet, and every backbone site, is a Unix machine. So net.unix-wizards benefits the sites that pay for it. >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. On the contrary. The loss of the net groups would hurt Apple, as well as you, the users. >>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. Try talking to marketing instead of finance. I only meant that it would be LESS difficult to get the numbers to back you up when 10% of all traffic concerns your products. >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. Advertising and marketing spend billions of dollars a year in this country. How much is advertising worth? Hard to quantify. For companies that build good products, exchanges of information on those products is very effective advertising. Even if people start pointing out some flaw, it's useful for the manufacturer to know that too. Why did Apple set up the University Consortium? How can you justify that? >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. Where did I say that? Have you read any of my other postings? I was suggesting that one of several companies might consider doing a little more than they are currently doing, possibly supplying an extra north-south link in California, to make a small dent in some of the current problems. I would be happy to discuss with you what I think about some of the other problems, but this article is already too long. Frankly, I doubt that Apple or Commodore or IBM will spend any more on the net. But it seems the backbones are talking about downgrading only the nontechnical groups; with the continued growth in the sources groups, and several new types of computers about to get their own groups, we're about to be buried in {net,mod}.sources.*. -- - Joe Buck {ihnp4!pesnta,oliveb,csi}!epimass!jbuck Entropic Processing, Inc., Cupertino, California Better living through entropy!