From: dawson@willard.UUCP
Newsgroups: alt.bbs.ads,biz.comp.services
Subject: Re: Public Access USENET/EMAIL/UNIX
Date: 29 Sep 92 11:32:41 GMT
Organization: Willard's House BBS, Atlanta, GA -- +1 (404) 664 8814

vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver) writes:

> Back in the golden days, sites would offer others free feeds on the
> rationale that only by doing for others (giving them free feeds) would
> others do the same for you (give you a free feed).

Works for me, today.  This must be a "golden" day.

> On the other hand, you guys are talking about offering free feeds to
> amateurs who rarely pass it on.  Hobbiests with PC's are more likely to
> cause spool files to overflow, to change phone numbers without warning,
> to require nagging before submitting a map entry or getting a domain,
                                                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> to repeatedly ask naive questions and not understand the answers, and

Why?  Why?  Why?  I don't understand...  No, really; I must be in the
"rare" category, as I get MULTIPLE free feeds, and do indeed pass them
on to sites that do the same.

> generally take much more time and not give much back.  I'm not speaking
> academically about the joys of helping out the little guy.  In these
> days of NNTP, much of our modem time is spent talking to pure leaf
> sites.
> 
> The full cost of a full, 35MByte/day feed might be $1000/year,
>     -about $200 of disk for the 100MB spool

OK.

>     -about $500 of modem

Not.  There are several v.32bis modems for under $300, list price.
Good deals on used Telebits are around as well.

>     -part of a computer costing between $2500 and $250,000.
>     -about 50% of a $600/year phone line

Huh?  Must be LD, eh?

>     -$30-70/hour labor

More.  Much more.  My time is worth millions of zorkmids, even at home.

> and you must replace the computer, modem and disk every 18 months with
> newer, bigger, faster.

Well, I suppose you might if the growth in Usenet traffic outpaces your
current system.  On the other hand, if you administratively limit your
load by only receiving a partial feed, you don't _have_ to replace your
hardware so often.

> 
> 
> Vernon Schryver,  vjs@sgi.com

Now, we've reached the end, and I can attempt to say something useful.  And,
it is amazingly short and to the point:  despite the cynics of the net, there
are more than a few of us out here in netland who still subscribe to the ideal
of free feeds, share and share alike.  Admittedly, it is extremely easy to
be altruistic when all my traffic is local.  Persons or organizations that
find it necessary to make long distance phone calls for their connectivity
will find such volunteerism lacking.

There are plenty of persons or organizations who have seen the need and
demand for great networking services.  More power to them for making a
profit in this day of recession.

If I can offer mediocre UUCP services, and do so for free, there are more
than a few who will take me up on the offer, merely because they are cost-
conscious, and possibly also because they individually have neither the need
nor the time to read ALL of the Usenet.


-- 
dawson@willard.UUCP (Willard Dawson)
Willard's House BBS, Atlanta, GA -- +1 (404) 664 8814