Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!labrea!rutgers!bellcore!texbell!flatline!erict
From: erict@flatline.UUCP (j eric townsend)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: Adding commercial access to Usenet
Summary: Costs for Usenet for some folks...
Keywords: news BIX
Message-ID: <318@flatline.UUCP>
Date: 13 Feb 89 23:33:46 GMT
References: <796@n8emr.UUCP> <4524@inco.UUCP> <206@bixpb>
Organization: one bitchin' 3b1 in Tx.Houston.the-Montrose
Lines: 31

In article <206@bixpb>, bensmith@bixpb (Ben Smith) writes:
> It is true that BIX is considering posting some of the NetNews articles
> in a conference for just that purpose. The reasoning as follows:
>    (3) NetNews may seem to be free, but someone is actually having to
>        pay the phone bills, the disk space, the administration time.
>        The idea that the news is free is very naive. BIX is actually
>        an inexpensive system for individuals.


My personal cost: $1500 for my computer (AT&T 3b1) and $25/mo for an extra
phone line.  I had the extra phone line before I bought the computer, and
$1500 is low for a development machine with a compiler and other stuff.
Ie:  The average computer freak spends a grand or so on their computer
and buys an extra phone line.

If you're a student at the University of Houston, or at many other college
campuses, you can get a Usenet account for free.  You just fill out a form
and promise to be nice.  You don't have to own a computer or dumb terminal,
or have even one phone line.

I can't afford BIX, Compu$erve, GEnie etc because of their high hourly rates.
Even if I dropped by second line to pay for the service, I'd only get 5 or 6
hours of access time per month.

Usenet, for many of us, *is* truly free. 

-- 
J. Eric Townsend                 | "When I was a boy, we didn't have MTV.
uunet!nuchat!flatline!erict      | We had to take drugs and go to concerts..."
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