Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!osu-cis!killer!mjbtn!root From: root@mjbtn.UUCP (Mark J. Bailey) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: The death of USENET Summary: who are we? Message-ID: <267@mjbtn.UUCP> Date: 13 Jun 88 15:38:34 GMT References: <7475@swan.ulowell.edu> <2645@rpp386.UUCP> <91@carpet.WLK.COM> Distribution: na Lines: 44 I guess the question has to be, "Who do we think WE are?" For certain, we aren't (that is a large number of us) providing tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, hundreds of hours of labor time, and countless other costs that only a large corporation could provide. The way I see it is very similar to what happened on satellite TV. For a long time, a home dish owner could indulge in the best of programming for just the cost of the dish and receiver. As prices came down (ie, more Joe's jumped on the band wagon) the potential costs (income NOT realized by the cable industry) soared. It was inevitable that some type of control or action would have to be taken by the cable industry. Of course, as many of you are aware, there is now almost complete scrambling of all services that one would consider worth-while. They even scramble the network feeds and sporting events. My point is that with the growth of the net, brought on by such factors as the push towards Unix in the work place, the power of the PC's, etc., what used to be a reasonable and absorbable cost for companies such as AT&T has now become out of hand and a bottomless pit. From what I can see, they are attempting to reduce their role into a more managable and "profitable" operation. They, like the rest of us, see Usenet as a valuable resource that has a high return on investment for the most part. I agree that the noise level has made a large upswing in just the past few months. And this JJ thing has not helped to convince managers (like at AT&T) that the net is worth investing as much in. I have heard that the volume of traffic over JJ was pheonominal. No doubt this surge in traffic through the AT&T network was the straw that broke the camels back. It also reminds me of those situations where labor unions spit at managements statements that they are in financial straights (when they REALLY are), and strikes, pickets, etc., demanding too much to the point that management says "to h*#@ with it" and files bankruptcy. Not only do those unfortunate union members not get their demands, they lose their jobs. We could be seen as a union demanding more and more processing of some of these companies with our blind ignorance to whose really paying for it, and management has thrown in the towel. There is no simple solution. With the cable satellite industry, efforts by home dish owners to have Congress ban scrambling, had no effect and led (in part) to a new communcations act (1986) that made illegal receiving signals for which one was not authorized. I do not fear such acts occurring here, but the idea is the same. There is only so much a profit making entity will take a loss on before upper management says clean up, or clear out. AT&T has given much to Usenet. But he who giveths can taketh away, and who are WE to complain? Mark. -- Mark J. Bailey "Y'all com bak naw, ya hear!" USMAIL: 511 Memorial Blvd., Murfreesboro, TN 37130 ___________________________ VOICE: +1 615 893 4450 / +1 615 896 4153 | JobSoft UUCP: ...!{ames,mit-eddie}!killer!mjbtn!root | Design & Development Co. FIDO: Mark Bailey at Net/Node 1:116/12 | Murfreesboro, TN USA