From: kdenning@portal.hq.videocart.com (Karl Denninger)
Subject: Re: he's baaaaack (and cost of net feeds)
Summary: No big deal here
Organization: VideOcart Inc.
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 18:41:49 GMT

In article <1992Sep8.181634.19481@kocrsv01.delcoelect.com> c23st@kocrsv01.delcoelect.com (Spiros Triantafyllopoulos) writes:
>In article <Bu9r8t.HAu@portal.hq.videocart.com> kdenning@portal.hq.videocart.com (Karl Denninger) writes:
>>UUNET is cheap IF you don't take an >incoming< news feed.  That is, it you
>>only use it to send news, you can do it for no more than $30-40 a month max!
>>
>>Why does he need to take an incoming feed to send news?  The fact is he
>>doesn't.  Or mail either for that matter.  So you have a one-way pipe, being
>>paid for, which can be used all that anatolia's admin is willing to pay for.
>
>In other words, the Fur Club For Men (tm), Ginsaku Knives (tm), and
>Delta Burke's Excercise'n'Chocolate Video (tm) are all $40 a month
>away from flooding the net with advertisments/infomercials? (time to sound
>the buzzer for imminent death of the net)

Yep.  But as long as the material stays in a reasonable set of groups for
the purpose at hand its no big deal at all.

As one of the founders of "biz.*" I welcome commercialism on the network.
In fact, I think it is one of the things which will keep this behemouth
going at present growth rates.  The nature of this medium is that it simply
isn't going to be possible to run a full feed over phone lines in the next
two to three years at analog speeds.  How many of us can afford high-speed
56Kb (or better) lines to our homes, and have the equipment to run that
speed available at a reasonable cost?  My home machine already sports nearly
2GB of usable storage, and even that isn't enough at times.

Whether its Ginsu Knives or Armenian Revolutions, when things get to the
point that the traffic load is intolerable then you either (1) drop the
group, or (2) get the user(s) who want you to keep it to pay the freight.
No big deal.  This is as it always has been; witness alt.binaries.pictures.*
Many sites don't carry these; not for the content, but for the volume.

>>They have common-carrier status I believe -- therefore, they MUST tolerate 
>>it.  As a common carrier they cannot judge on content or impose arbitrary
>>sanction.  Read their subscriber agreement sometime.  Its refreshingly brief
>>and to the point (ONE page printed on both sides) and mentions no content
>>restriction beyond legality.
>
>I'm sure they did not write it with these folks in mind :-). Maybe it's time
>to send in the virtual lawyers to revisit the agreement (lots of :-)'s). 
>
>It will be interesting to see how things would shape up in the next few 
>weeks. 

Yep.... Should be quite interesting.

I disagree with the idea of censoring on the poster.  I think that's a rather 
big problem personally; it is easy to land on the wrong side of the "majority 
opinion" and end up being shot with your own gun so to speak.

The problem here is that for the smaller sites they MUST enforce some code
of conduct.  These sites just don't have the resources to resist government
intervention, as Steve Jackson Games amply demonstrates.  This conflicts
directly with common carrier principles.  There is a serious area of law
here which needs to be addressed; I fear the actual outcome in reality
should it ever go to trial.

UUNET and other "network providers" which are large commercial entities have
fewer problems -- when you have 100s of customers its darn hard to make the
point that you "knew" that someone was practicing defamation, etc.

-- 
Karl Denninger 		Inet:  kdenning@hq.videocart.com
VideOcart Inc.		Voice: (312) 987-5022
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