dattier@jolnet.ORPK.IL.US (David Tamkin) (02/08/89)
Much has been made of Brad Templeton's new announcements, including his claim on a right of refusal to let rec.humor.funny be fed to sites that charge for net.news access. No one yet has posted anything about three different ways these sites charge that pop into my mind offhand, and I'll give one sample of each: chinet: Party, PicoSpan, email, and shell access are free; it's $50 per year to have access to net.news. It's the same $50 whether you use the news reading privilege or not, whether you read rec.humor.funny or not. How much revenue is generated by rec.humor.funny? Well, you'll have to ask each chinet user with news access to allocate his or her reasons for requesting news access across the $50 and see how much it adds up for each contributor's allotment to "I wanted to read rec.humor.funny." cup.portal.com: Portal charges customers $15 to sign up and then $10 per calendar month for whatever use they make for any of their offerings. Most Portal users are scared witless of coming anywhere near Usenet, despite the reputation of Portal customers on the net from a few malefactors. You'd have to allocate every customer's $10 across the reasons for maintaining a Portal account. Now, very few people are on Portal because of net.news at first; those who know about Usenet often can reach regular public sites at less cost (at least until April 30, 1989); the largest continent on Portal are the CB buffs and email seekers, most of whom have no interest in net.news. There are a few who subscribe to Portal to see alt.* or talk.* groups that their schools or employers don't get, but like those who are there for a news feed in the first place, their numbers are very small. (Yes, I am also known to the net as David_W_Tamkin@cup.portal.com, so I know this first hand.) In both of the above cases, there is no surcharge for reading rec.humor. funny. It would be very difficult to determing how much of their revenue is generated by having a distilled rec.humor.funny separate from rec.humor. well: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (is that the right name?) has a fee structure something like $8.00 per month plus $3.00 per hour for prepaid calls, maybe $1.00 per hour extra for calls received through the net they are on, most of that extra dollar going to the net itself. Here we have two factors: the attraction of rec.humor.funny in getting someone on well for the month allocated across the $8 and $3 per hour for actual time spent reading rec.humor.funny or saved files of rec.humor.funny articles. That second component is much easier to calculate and far more concrete to pin down. (Even at that, it may be difficult to generate the figures.) If Templeton insists that he has a say, if not a share, in distributing rec.humor.funny for a charge, I feel that a system that charges a flat rate across the calendar for news access, a system that charges a flat rate across the calendar for a number of services among which net.news is only one, and a system that charges for on-line time are three different animals. You can't lump them all into one cage and tend them identically. David W. Tamkin dattier@jolnet.orpk.il.us ...!killer!jolnet!dattier Jolnet, Public Access Unix , Orland Park, Illinois 3 Adar Rishon 5749