Rural Datafication (Was Re: Edited Edupage, 9 May 1996)

[E. ALLEN SMITH]

From:	IN%"mccoy at communities.com" 15-MAY-1996 00:55:57.23

>BTW, while there may have been a decent argument against the electrification
>act, I think that you are paddling upstream when it comes to net connections.
>The value of your net connection (or any connection to the net) _increases_
>according to the number of people who are connected to the network.  Unlike
>all of the other rural subsidies you pay for as an urban dweller (with the
>possible exception of the phone subsidy), this is one which has direct benefit
>to you.

	If it was a direct benefit, we'd chose it freely without being drafted
by the use of phone bills. Look at Juno et al - that's a circumstance in which
interconnection is taking place via the free market. Moreover, you're assuming
that there's some reason that I _want_ to be connected to those with
insufficient education, etcetera to move out of the rural areas we're talking
about. I know these places; I grew up in a town surrounded by hillbillies
(Middlesboro, KY). Believe me, I have no desire to have further contact with
them - via the net or any other method.

>Oh yeah, and you are already subsidizing their phone bill (at least the
>increased cost of running a line out to them and maintaining that line), and
>their electricity bill, and satellite TV took care of any need to run cable
>TV lines out there or else you would also be subsidizing their cable TV by
>now.  So what was your point?

	My tax dollars (and that's what the proposed phone bill changes
are in many ways - they're government requirements for people to pay money) are
also paying for a lot of other things I don't approve of, such as the drug war.
This isn't a reason to fund more of it.
	-Allen