Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!mcdchg!ddsw1!karl From: karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: Geosat transmission of news Summary: More on Stargate and the new BC (Vancover) geosat news transmissions Message-ID: <3569@ddsw1.MCS.COM> Date: 4 Jun 89 19:50:45 GMT References: <371@odi.ODI.COM> <3400@looking.on.ca> <3549@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <3413@looking.on.ca> <1203@ssbn.WLK.COM> Reply-To: karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) Distribution: na Organization: Macro Computer Solutions, Inc., Mundelein, IL Lines: 103 In article <1203@ssbn.WLK.COM> bill@ssbn.UUCP (Bill Kennedy) writes: >I was one of the subscribers in the original Stargate experimental >period and I have been watching this discussion with some interest. > >I agree with Brad's statement (in another article) that >the demise was more political than it needed to be. I don't understand >why people refused to have their articles propagated via Stargate but >some did. The initial subscription fees were rather high. If Stargate had not tried to prevent people from retransmitting the feed once they had it, they would not have had the problem.... In fact the "you may get this only if you can resend it" copyright notices would have exactly zero net effect on Stargate -- if they had dropped the redistribution restriction. >There was even open hostility >towards the project and the people who brought it into being. The >idea of paying to get news isn't new now, nor was it then. But the idea of preventing you from resending your news to someone else as a feed, for free or not, was new, and people did object. (I wrote...) >>>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. >[ $$ figures deleted ... ] > >I don't think so, in my opinion they'd had been better off had they >been able to add some program material other than netnews. That still doesn't solve the cost problem... which is a problem that anyone doing this kind of thing has to address! Somewhere you have to get back your money that has been invested, and you can only subsidize service costs with product revenues for a while. Eventually any service has to stand on it's own two feet, or fail. >> $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. > >I don't think that's entirely a fair comparison. The Vancouver folks >have hardware sales to subsidize the service (you can't get it if you >don't have their equipment can you?) and I'm betting that they have >some kind of good deal on transponder time. They may also decide that it is not realistic to continue to give away the programming once they have sold a few thousand decoders.... do those things have the ability to do some kind of decryption? If so, in a few months your "free" newsfeed might just turn into a pay-per-view newsfeed. >I still think that satellite delivery is a good idea. Maybe the >fellows in BC have their act together and it can happen. The only problem I have with the BC people is that there has been no statement of how long the "free" newsfeeds will last. Given the law of business which says "you must make a profit or die", I have my doubts about the seemingly too-good-to-be-true deal here. These decoders that are being sold are likely only good for one thing -- receiving the news broadcast that is being uplinked. When the people who run this show decide that they want some $100 a month to keep receiving that data, and that you cannot resend the data once you have it (ie: they decide to "compilation copyright" the entire stream -- where have we seen that before?), then what kind of deal have you received? You will have two choices -- pay the fee, however outrageous, and drop all your neighbor sites (or buy someone's software to prevent the prohibited cross feeding, hmmmm....), or scrap the investment in the dish and other materials you have made, going back to the traditional methods of receiving and sending news. Sounds like a good way to get squeezed between the walls if you ask me, and a nice handsome profit from a captive market in the waiting for a company in BC. >This requires some organization and discipline, but it isn't the end of >the net as we know it; I think it's a logical follow-on and progression >from uunet. If certain areas, as Brad suggests, got satellite links they >could propagate quickly and efficiently within their local or reasonable >calling area. Again, providing that you can redistribute what you receive. This was Stargate's biggest problem, and if the BC people try this tack they'll likely get the same kind of response from the net at large. I'd like to see a statement of some kind from the folks in BC who are doing this. Something concrete -- as to the length of service during which the feed will be available, fees for the future (if any), and a specific non-revocable renouncement of any intent to compilation copyright the stream they are sending out. Only with all of this would I consider tossing my money in their direction; I don't like being squeezed. To date I've seen nothing of the kind from them -- just a "get the news free, buy this nice cheap decoder and tune our satellite transponder". Remember the old adage -- if it sounds too good to be true, it is, or more succintly, TNSTAAFL (there's no such thing as a free lunch). -- 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"