From: sean@think.com (Sean Colbath)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: Playboy Article "Adventures in Cyberspace"
Date: 8 Apr 1992 22:43:17 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge, MA (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: merlin.think.com

In article <COLIN.92Apr6234007@wrangel.Cayman.COM> colin@Cayman.COM (Colin "Atilla" Steele) writes:
>
>I cannot concur more heartily.  Virtual sex is a long long long long
>long long way off.  Maybe even longer than that.
>
>OK, yes, people will always get a bit hot under the, er, collar, when
>that cute little three letter word *sex* gets mentioned, but GET REAL.
>So, if you want to talk about virtual sex, frame it in the context of
>a grasping, confused, and technically ignorant public, goaded on by
>the media.  'Cause that's all it is.  Yes.  That's all it is.
>
>I dare anyone to offer substantive evidence, not "well given the
>current rate of advance", that before our children are grandparents,
>as the good author deftly notes, we'll be anywhere near real
>virual/gibsonian/simstim sex.  No, double dog dare.

I dunno.  It's pretty hard to prove a negative.  Consider for a minute, the
amount of money that's spent each year to move sex-type information around
Usenet.  I call your attention to the March postings in News.lists.
According to Brian Reid, there are approximately 45,000 sites on the net.
Here are the top 10 newsgroups from the arbitron data from March:

        +-- Estimated total number of people who read the group, worldwide.
        |     +-- Actual number of readers in sampled population
        |     |     +-- Propagation: how many sites receive this group at all
        |     |     |      +-- Recent traffic (messages per month)
        |     |     |      |      +-- Recent traffic (kilobytes per month)
        |     |     |      |      |      +-- Crossposting percentage
        |     |     |      |      |      |    +-- Cost ratio: $US/month/rdr
        |     |     |      |      |      |    |      +-- Share: % of newsrders
        |     |     |      |      |      |    |      |   who read this group.
        V     V     V      V      V      V    V      V
   1 270000  5560   69%  2139  8135.4    24%  0.04  13.0%  alt.sex
   2 230000  4679   84%   864  1602.9    21%  0.01  10.9%  misc.jobs.offered
   3 210000  4273   83%  1482  1825.5    32%  0.02  10.0%  misc.forsale
   4 200000  4054   82%    69   162.5     0%  0.00   9.5%  rec.humor.funny
   5 180000  3695   81%  1830  2881.1     6%  0.03   8.6%  rec.humor
   6 150000  2985   72%    10   234.7     0%  0.00   7.0%  rec.arts.erotica
   7 130000  2715   65%  1573  5650.4     2%  0.06   6.3%  alt.sex.bondage
   8 130000  2667   89%  1522  3054.5    21%  0.04   6.2%  news.groups
   9 120000  2558   85%   797  1668.7    16%  0.02   6.0%  comp.graphics
  10 120000  2481   86%  1209  2274.8    25%  0.03   5.8%  comp.lang.c

Note that of these 10, three are sex-oriented.  Of particular import, I
will include:

  16 110000  2325   50%  1083 45913.6    17%  0.44   5.4% 
					alt.binaries.pictures.erotica

If you look at the statistics by *volume* you will see a different story:

        +-- Estimated total number of people who read the group, worldwide.
        |     +-- Actual number of readers in sampled population
        |     |     +-- Propagation: how many sites receive this group at all
        |     |     |      +-- Recent traffic (messages per month)
        |     |     |      |      +-- Recent traffic (kilobytes per month)
        |     |     |      |      |      +-- Crossposting percentage
        |     |     |      |      |      |    +-- Cost ratio: $US/month/rdr
        |     |     |      |      |      |    |      +-- Share: % of newsrders
        |     |     |      |      |      |    |      |   who read this group.
        V     V     V      V      V      V    V      V
   1 110000  2325   50%  1083 45913.6    17%  0.44   5.4% 
				alt.binaries.pictures.erotica
   2  73000  1498   52%   773 30761.1     2%  0.46   3.5%  
				alt.binaries.pictures.misc
   3   7700   157   43%  5262 18236.9     0%  2.10   0.4%  
				bionet.molbio.genbank.updates
   4  50000  1017   44%   379 17043.1    56%  0.32   2.4%  
				alt.binaries.pictures
   5  35000   716   50%   245 11665.0     2%  0.35   1.7%  
				alt.binaries.sounds.misc
   6 270000  5560   69%  2139  8135.4    24%  0.04  13.0%  
				alt.sex
   7  27000   546   76%   191  7815.3     0%  0.46   1.3%  
				comp.binaries.os2
   8  28000   575   65%  4044  7503.8     1%  0.36   1.3%  
				rec.sport.basketball.college
   9  44000   903   70%  2973  7380.8    14%  0.25   2.1% 
				talk.abortion
  10  31000   640   47%   157  7293.7     0%  0.23   1.5%  
				alt.binaries.pictures.fractals


Five out of the top 10 newsgroups are sex-based, in order of volume.  Most
of them reach an estimated 50% of the sites on the net, or about 22,500
sites.  Now, for the $:

         No. of        $ Cost  % of  Cumulative
Rank  Kbytes Articles per Site Total  % of Total  Group (Articles/contributor)
   1 21410.7     531     56.50  5.2%     5.2%     
			alt.binaries.pictures.erotica (3.0)
   2 15296.4     382     40.37  3.7%     8.9%     
			alt.binaries.pictures.misc (4.5)
   3 11321.1     271     29.88  2.8%    11.7%     
			alt.binaries.pictures (5.3)
   4 11204.6    3845     29.57  2.7%    14.4%     
			bionet.molbio.genbank.updates (1.0)
   5  6079.5     139     16.04  1.5%    15.9%     
			alt.sex.pictures (8.7)
   6  5651.7     120     14.91  1.4%    17.3%     
			alt.binaries.pictures.fractals (7.5)
   7  5118.8     124     13.51  1.2%    18.5%     
			comp.binaries.os2 (1.0)
   8  4790.3    2033     12.64  1.2%    19.7%     
			talk.politics.misc (3.4)
   9  4654.4    1551     12.28  1.1%    20.8%     
			alt.sex (2.3)
  10  3977.1     150     10.50  1.0%    21.8%     
			comp.mail.maps (1.0)

$ Cost is the cost of sending it over a Trailblazer to UUNET, using the 
800 number and Night rates. (1000 characters per second and $9.50 per hour)
I.e .264 cents per kilobyte

Five out of the top ten expensive newgroups are also sex-based.  To figure
out the cost for the month of March to send this information all over the
world, you come up with:

(56.50*22500)+(40.37*22500)+(29.88*22500)+(16.04*22500)+(12.18*22500) or

$3,486,825

for the month of March.  That's on the order of $42 million a year, for a
rather primitive form of VR sex.

Now, start a company, and give them a $40m/year budget, and factor in the
standard technology growth curve.  How long do *you* think it will take to
get a more "reasonable" form of VR sex?

Food for thought, I'd say.

>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Colin Steele     | Cayman Systems, 26 Landsdowne St., Cambridge, MA 02139
> colin@cayman.com | (617) 494-1916 x209 | applelink D0523 | Fax (617) 494-9270


					-Sean

-- 
Sean Colbath
sean@think.com					...harvard!think!sean
"...and now for something completely different..."
Xref: sparky alt.sex:13922 alt.cyberpunk:2022 misc.legal:9079