Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!mcdchg!ddsw1!karl From: karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: Geosat transmission of news Summary: More discussion and Brad's ideas Message-ID: <3560@ddsw1.MCS.COM> Date: 1 Jun 89 19:37:52 GMT References: <371@odi.ODI.COM> <3400@looking.on.ca> <3549@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <3413@looking.on.ca> Reply-To: karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) Organization: Macro Computer Solutions, Inc., Mundelein, IL Lines: 126 In article <3413@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: >In article <3549@ddsw1.MCS.COM> karl@ddsw1.UUCP (Karl Denninger) writes: >> >>You mean so they could continue to perpetuate the monopoly they held, and >>reap the revenue from same. > >Stargate, as I understand it, had to compete in the free market that >exists for general newsfeeds. I know of no monopoly they held or >tried to hold. All they wanted to say was that those who took advantage >of the satellite transmission should all pay for it equally. But that's the rub, you see. The net as a whole is based on being a broadcast medium, with the copyright on individual postings (if any) held by the poster. No one has, until Stargate, been so crass as to attempt to enforce re-feeding restrictions. Oh wait. You tried that too, remember? And were loudly shouted down. You withdrew the proposal too, if I remember (the "anyone can get this unless I say you can't" attempt to control propagation of r.h.f). >What was so bad about that? Why, I wonder did people care about how >stuff they were posting was transmitted? Why did it matter if those >who got it by downlink were required to pay if other people could get >it by other routes? That's what a free market in net feeds, if you >want to call it that, is all about. If Stargate really was cheaper, >people would go to it. If it wasn't, nobody would bother and their >admonition not to feed wouldn't have meant anything. No, a truly free market in net feeds (as defined by the current policies of the net) allows the refeeding of that net feed that you obtain from any source. Stargate tried to prevent that, and got a lot of flack. They also died. It seems as though the market DID speak. They also only fed a "selected portion" of the groups.... >What I was commenting on was the fact that people weren't satisfied to >let Stargate live or die through this system of free choice. They >opposed it and put the share-right messages on their postings. Putting a "share right" message on your postings is exercising their right of free choice -- after all, the poster DOES hold the copyright on his or her postings to this net, and can place restrictions on them if they wish. What's the problem Brad, don't you like others exercising their rights, but your rights are ok? Sounds awfully fishy to me. >Consider the fact that I get netnews on my system. I am fully allowed >to let it stop right here and be a leaf. There is no requirement that I >share it, and nobody would think of making one! Could somebody require >me to give out free accounts and free feeds? Of course not. > >Yet the message, "You may transmit this only if your recipients may" is >very similar to "you may transmit this to your system only if you don't >deny anybody access to it on your system." The former was accepted, the >latter sounds silly. "You may transmit this only if your recipients may" is analogous to "You can use this posting in rec.humor.funny, but only as long as you don't prevent others from passing the group and this posting on if they see fit to do so." It prevents someone (a moderator, or transmission medium) from saying "you get this feed from me, you can't feed downstream sites, because I want the money that feed would generate". >>Actually, I worked in that industry, and I can't see how satellite >>technology is any cheaper to use now than it was two or so years back. > >Perhaps the Stargate folks were way out of line. Could be. But it's >my understanding that today a 2400 bps uplink is on the order of >$2,000 per month. That's was the folks in Vancouver said they were >paying, I think. I seem to recall UUNET saying that they run around >$50,000 per month of traffic there. $2,000 per month for all of usenet >seems like a good bargain to me -- cheap enough that some people have >decided it's not even worth asking people to contribute. Now, let's see. Stargate was what, some $10 or $20 a month (this is a question; I never took them seriously enough to check it out)? How many feeds do you need before you pay that $2k, and start pocketing the profits? Uh huh. And if you can prevent anyone from refeeding, then the scheme is obviously to get EVERYONE to pay you the $10 a month. Now, let's see. If we have, what, 9000 sites, at $10 a month, hmmm... that's some $90,000! Even if you only get 10% of the sites to use your service, you still make some $7k a month after expenses -- or a profit of 250%! I'd love to make that kind of profit margin in our business! I feel that is a tidy profit, no? And I bet the Stargate people saw the gleam in their eyes as well. Money is like that. >A 2400 bps feed can send around 17 megs/day of solid data, that's 17 >non-compressed megs sent twice based on 2:1 compression. That's about >4 times today's usenet volume. And that $2k/month is about the cost of >one fast internet link. Usenet currently runs around 55 megs of compressed >data per month, and uunet charges around $2.80/megabyte (TB+ over wats line) Oh, but think of this. We feed locally, on a Telebit. We pay about $.05 per minute, and on a telebit we can feed a meg in about 15 or 20 minutes. Thus, we pay about $1.00 per megabyte to pick up news over the telephone. >This is $192/month. You could buy your downlink quickly at that rate, >particularly if you only wanted one downlink per local calling area. Ah, but we only pay $55.00 per month for our feed. Now how long does it take to pay for that dish? And who is going to guarantee that the programming will REMAIN free for the taking? Certainly not that company -- once they have a few thousand decoders out there, it only makes economic sense to start charging for the data! They'd be awfully foolish to not have thought of this, and somehow, I give them more business sense than that. --- (aside follows -- don't un-rot this unless you like seeing people torched, and don't say you weren't warned.) Ogj: Jurer'f gur fgernz bs wbxrf gung jnf cebzvfrq gb pbzr sebz Travr naq gur bgure argjbexf? Gur orarsvg bs lbhe ov-qverpgvbany tngrjnl sbe gur Hfrarg nf n jubyr? Jnf gung whfg fzbxr? Naq abj lbh unir n arj "vzzvarag naabhaprzrag". Terng. Jung fpurzr ner lbh jbexvat ba abj gb cebsvg bss guvf argjbex? -- Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, !ddsw1!karl) Public Access Data Line: [+1 312 566-8911], Voice: [+1 312 566-8910] Macro Computer Solutions, Inc. "Quality Solutions at a Fair Price"