Doug Barnes wrote:

I strongly agree with Tim that one should not look down at for-profit anonymizing services. This is the _only_ way I see to establish and maintain reliable service and avoid spamming and denial of service. It's also the only way such a service can scale if it becomes suddenly popular -- if there's no increased revenue, it's going to be harder to get more h/w and bandwidth.

Indeed, the problems Julf & Company are having in getting adequate CPU power is illustrative. I see Julf saying he desperately needs some more computer power (this was a few months back) and I see others making the same tired old calls for "donations." (I say tired because requests that some people make contributions to effectively pay for the services used freely by others are rarely very effective....look to the sorry state of public broadcasting "begathons" for one example.) Instead of pointless beggings of the form "If only everyone who used Julf's service would send him $5," a pay-per-use system is much more scalable, and "closes the loop" on who pays. To wit, those that use the service, pay. Those that don't, don't. (I understand that Russ Nelson has experience in the shareware business, so he may know how many people send in their voluntary contributions. My understanding is that it's a tiny fraction, and that few shareware authors ever make much money. I've talked to some of them, and they consider shareware a failed experiment, except for new products trying to break into crowded markets, where the "shareware" label is just a facade for essentially giving it away in exchange for fame and eventual fortune if the product goes commercial.)

Even if one had a heart of gold and purely charitable instincts, one would eventually come to the conclusion that such a service operates better if users are paying for it. And this is even before we address matters like the benefits of competition.

Precisely. A for-pay remailer can also be pressured by customers to enhance services, not take the remailer down for frivolous reasons, etc. It's real hard to ask a "charityware" remailer to honor comitments, add features, etc. Simple economics, and free market anarchy. Nobody here is proposing that fees be set (how could we?), that free remailers be banned (how?), etc. Those that want to give away their products are free to do so, just as those who want to charge $25 per remailing are free to do so. Free remailers will have a place, but will likely get "discovered" by spammers and by those who see no costs in adding it to their remailer chains. Hence, overuse. (More precise than "overuse": crowding, poor service, flakiness, etc.) Just like anything else in economics. The users ("the market") will largely determine how it all shakes out. There are fortunately no government agencies in any of the countries I know of that claim to be able to set fee schedules, ban "price gouging," ban "underpricing," or regulate remailers in any practical way. service, flakiness, etc.) Just like anything else in economics. (Such moves may someday come, but that's another topic.) --Tim -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tc/tcmay