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Path: utzoo!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: net.news.adm
Subject: Good luck 8-( Re: A proposal to distribute costs
Message-ID: <643@looking.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 17-Aug-86 00:53:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: looking.643
Posted: Sun Aug 17 00:53:11 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 17-Aug-86 09:48:41 EDT
References: <-127674843@sysvis> <170@wolf.UUCP>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd. Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 29
Summary: 

I've been on this net for over five years now.  I've seen dozens of proposals
come and go, I have even made several that I have seen repeated almost
word for word each year.

All I can say is good luck.  Nothing serious will ever come about in the
way of Usenet organization by talking about it.

Somebody has to do it, and do it so well that people flock to it of their
own desire.  No vote or plan will achieve this.

Central schemes to have master sites which bill charges around to subnodes
exist in a few places (Toronto is one) but they won't come about on
a grand scale.

The secret is that most usenet sites stay on the net because net people
sneak the charges past their employers.  Surveys have been conducted asking
"how much would you pay for usenet services if they cost lots less than
your current phone bills?"  The answer from most is zero.  "If I ever asked
my boss to explicitly pay for this stuff, it would all be shut off."

A small portion of the net makes the payments willingly, and AT&T (a good
sized portion of the net) makes a bundle off of it and gets phone service
at cost anyway.  A much larger portion of the net gets news via a local
call and couldn't pay a dime.

While the excuse, "look what's in net.unix-wizards" works for some, these
days it would only result in the bill payers cutting off the rest.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473