Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think!Think.COM!barmar
From: barmar@Think.COM
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: The Rape of Usenet (an alternative view)
Keywords: The wholesale capturing of Usenet by GEnie
Message-ID: <32387@news.Think.COM>
Date: 21 Dec 89 05:26:13 GMT
References: <946@crash.cts.com> <6576@brspyr1.BRS.Com> <1989Dec21.024040.25157@athena.mit.edu>
Sender: news@Think.COM
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA
Lines: 29

In article <1989Dec21.024040.25157@athena.mit.edu> jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens) writes:
>  It is irrelevant what the specific charges are for.  The fact is
>that if people are reading the postings that are gatewayed to GEnie,
>then GEnie is making money off of them, and GEnie got them for free
>(except for transportation costs; by "free" I mean they didn't pay the
>people who wrote them), and GEnie is not in any way giving the people
>who wrote the original messages part of the profit they are making.

So you're saying that no computer system that charges users should have
access to netnews?  Many university computer centers charge for usage.
Many corporate computer centers also do.

You aren't paid when you write a letter to a newspaper, yet the newspaper
charges people to let them read it.  What's the difference?

GEnie is providing a service to its users by linking them to an information
source.  What's wrong with them charging for that service?  And it costs
them money to provide it; they have to pay for the disk space and the
telecommunications costs.

Most computer centers that provide Usenet are making a profit from it in
one way or another; why else would they do it?  The technical information
we receive in netnews has value.  The "rec" groups improve the morale or
the employees, which is reflected in productivity and the attractiveness of
the company as a place to work.  Profit is just very indirect sometimes.
Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com
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