On Thu, Jul 31, 1997 at 08:16:59AM -0400, William H. Geiger III wrote: [...]>
One way to implement this is for other people to pay the author for their articles a penny if they like the article. That way people who write things which others find interesting to read get subsidized posting. Is it still free speech if you have to pay for your posts if you're arguing for an unpopular minority?
This will not work!!!
I agree. If charging for mail would eliminate spam, then I should not be getting the mailboxfull of physical junk mail I receive every morning. Postage benefits the MAIL CARRIER, not the recipient, and it is in the best interests of the mail carrier to carry MORE mail, not less. So, e-postage will almost certainly cause more spam, not less. [...]
It should be noted that the Bandwith issue is a red-herring.
However, I think your argument here is faulty, because bandwidth is in fact oversubscribed -- the whole system depends on each end subscriber not using all their bandwidth all the time.
The bandwith of the USENET has been *PAID IN FULL* by every subscriber to an ISP. The ISP customers pay for their connections to their ISP who in turn pay for their connections to the Access providers who inturn pay for the Backbone. The PIPE has been paid for what goes over it not an issue. If all I want to do with my T1 connection is ship *.jpg files via ftp 24/7 that is no ones busines but my own.
Not really. A T1 line, for example, can handle maybe 40-50 28.8 modems going full blast, but a small ISP over a T1 might have 200 customers. This goes right on up the line -- at every level bandwidth is oversubscribed, and successful operation of the net depends on certain statistical usage patterns. So, while it isn't written down in a contract anywhere, what you are really paying for is peak bandwidth, not sustained bandwidth. -- Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited", kent@songbird.com the thief he kindly spoke... PGP fingerprint: B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44 61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55 http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html