Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-winken!uunet!tiamat!jim
From: jim@tiamat.fsc.com (Jim O'Connor)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: Commercial use of usenet vs. commercial abuse of usenet - a list
Summary: yes, some commercial use is good
Message-ID: <499@tiamat.fsc.com>
Date: 29 Mar 89 05:00:30 GMT
References: <3012@looking.UUCP>
Organization: Filtration Sciences - Chattanooga,TN
Lines: 37

In article <3012@looking.UUCP>, brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes:
> 
> I had said that It is my opinion that principle of USENET is that commercial
> *use* is ok, and that commercial *abuse* is what people refer to when they
> talk of a non-commercial usenet.

I agree, also.  Some commercial use is OK.  As a matter of fact, I recently
purchased a disk controller from a company (to remain nameless) which
advertised the controller on the net (in one of the biz.* groups, if I
recall correctly) in a tastefully posted article.  

> To my mind, all principles of usenet come from this one: "If it benefits
> the readers more than it costs to read and send around, it's worth having
> on usenet.  To suggest that we worry about whether the author, moderator
> UUNET or AT&T might be makign money from it is merely a dog-in-the-manger
> attitude."

Amen.

There are some things I would actually like to see more of, e.g. price lists.
I seem to have the hardest time just getting generic price lists out of vendors.
I'm basically a catalog shopper. i.e. I have a certain amount budgetted, but I
don't know what I want, so I go looking for something that meets the price
and functionality needs.  With sometheing like the biz.* groups
available (which are intended as a commercial forum), it's a pity that
vendors don't take more advantage of them.  I am 100 times more likely to
buy something from a vendor who is an active net participant and who I can
communicate with via e-mail (telephone tag is real high on my pain-in-the-neck
list).

IMHO, a person and/or company is welcome to "make money off the net" as long
as they are providing some service which will end up benefitting the net.
------------- 
James B. O'Connor			jim@tiamat.fsc.com
Filtration Sciences Corporation		615/821-4022 x. 651

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