Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!apple!well!tneff
From: tneff@well.UUCP (Tom Neff)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Scrap the current NG creation procedure, invent a new one
Summary: Do sysadmins really pay the bills?  I wonder
Message-ID: <11250@well.UUCP>
Date: 6 Apr 89 17:39:30 GMT
References: <3010@looking.UUCP> <445@flatline.UUCP> <3199@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <4833@inco.UUCP> <297@ubbs-nh.MV.COM>
Reply-To: tneff@well.UUCP (Tom Neff)
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 18

There seems to be an unquestioned assumption here that sysadmins are
the ones who foot the bill for Usenet.  Is this really the case?  I can
think of one class of site where this is so - the "basement 386" where
someone posts from home.  Almost no one else would seem to qualify.  At
a big university site, the alumni, tuition payers and grant sources
(including Uncle Sugar) are footing the bill.  At a corporate site, the
revenues of the firm are used.  Public access sites use the users'
(i.e., newsreaders') fees.  In all these cases, the sysadmin is
effectively the *employee* of those who actually foot the bill, and who
[putatively] derive the ultimate benefit from net participation.

No question, though, that sysadmins at all these kinds of sites are the
ones who do the hard work, even if the money does tend to be someone
else's.  I am not convinced this ought to mean they determine what the
net does and does not carry, but I can sympathize with the desire.
-- 
Tom Neff                  tneff@well.UUCP
                       or tneff@dasys1.UUCP