Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!umd5!purdue!decwrl!ucbvax!MCL.UNISYS.COM!perry
From: perry@MCL.UNISYS.COM (Dennis Perry)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Whither chargeback policies?
Message-ID: <8804221603.AA29856@LANAI.MCL.UNISYS.COM>
Date: 22 Apr 88 16:03:17 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 20

Sean, I agree with you arguments whole heartedly!  Your argument
is essentially that the communications cabpability provided by
networks like the Arpanet provide a higher level good than just
commuications.  This is often thought of as 'infrastructure' in
some circles, where the infrastructure is what allows society
as a whole to operate at a higher level than it could otherwise.

How does one pay for infrastructure?  Usually thru some means other
than usage, although that could be a part of the rate structure.  More
often infrastructure is paid for thru taxes of some form.  Taxes,
as we all know, are also often used to provide societal gains, and
not all pay according to use (perhaps inversely? :-).  I suspect
that usage charges on the Arpanet will cause unknown sociological
behavior which may turn out to be worse for the government than
for the research community as a whole, and what started out as
a way to solve a simple budgeting problem may well end up creating
a more complicated infrastructure problems which will work against
DARPA's desire to foster scientific research in the US and aid the
competitiveness of other countries.

dennis