gam@amdahl.UUCP (G A Moffett) (03/22/86)
Imagine what would happen if the only means by which the network
existed was via home computers owned by individuals, rather than
mainframes owned by corporations. I suspect that those individuals
would probably be very picky about what sorts of phone calls they would
be willing to make, for how long, and how much disk space they'd want
to use for news. It is gonna be those kinds of questions that
determine what newsgroups stay and which do not, no matter how
supportive the vote in net.news.group are! And, for better or for
worse, I think that's how it should be.
That's right, let the natural forces of the market place decide what is
permitted and what's not.
True, the wonderful backbones pay more for this net stuff than any of
the others, but they do that *because they want to*. If they didn't
want to why are they doing it? (And, in fact, haven't some of them cut
back?)
Then you ask, "What about those leaf sites who get all the news via a
local call? What do they pay?" Nothing. They are the (fortunate)
guests of other sites, who themselves may or may not be paying for what
*they* receive. Of course, the non-paying site can be asked to pay,
especially by the site that feeds them (" ... or we'll cut the feed!")
but that doesn't seem to happen much, currently. (Nice to hear that
that is happening in the UK, though).
There is no reason why the costs cannot be shared or distributed more
evenly than they are now, but as always this is the choice of
individual sites to decide what method of cost-sharing they will agree
to. The costs would probably be passed on, site by site, and this
would establish a network of support (as it were). If a given site has
to pay another site to get all the news sent to them, they may or may
not choose to charge any of the sites they feed for the news that they
forward. Note that each such decision will be a "local event", and
does not require any net-wide system of cost-sharing to take effect.
We have already seen the natural economic processes at work, by the
way, in that the so-called "soapbox" newsgroups are no longer
distributed in Colorado thru hao. The net got too expensive, and, by
general agreement of the effected parties, some newsgroups were dropped
from local distribution.
If a site were to refuse to forward a newsgroup at all, that is not a
disaster, of course. Other sites can seek to carry and distribute that
newsgroup. They will carry whatever costs it takes to retain it, in
effect. If nobody wants to take on those costs, the newsgroup dies.
Yes, this is not "equal", but it is fair. The costs are ultimately
paid by those willing to pay them. When they don't want to pay the
costs, they drop what they don't want. If someone else wants what they
drop, they will seek to get it, to the limits they can afford. Thus
no-one is paying more than they want to.
--
Gordon A. Moffett ...!{ihnp4,seismo,hplabs}!amdahl!gam
~ How can I tell you ~
~ That I love you? ~
~ ... I can't think of right words to say ~