On April 25, 2004 at 15:41 research(_at_)solidmatrix(_dot_)com (Yakov
Shafranovich) wrote:
A few comments on this.
First a hierarchy structure for e-postage must solve the settlement
problem although I don't know how the business side of it will work it.
For example, if each receiving ISP would let the uplink provider
negotiate on their behalf, and the uplink provider would combine the
total e-postage costs for their customers and negotiate on their behalf
with other provider, that might reduce the problem. Or maybe not.
Why? Why do you imagine this?
For example, when the USPS puts postage bound for France on a United
Airline flight then, you imagine, they buy stamps from United Airlines
for each letter or somehow resolve the sharing of postage with them in
some complex piece by piece method?
Nonsense! They pay the airline for space or weight or something
similar.
Much like an ISP would pay the next tier up for bandwidth to deliver
the email injected into the system by their customers.
I'm not saying it's impossible that there might be some other charging
method sensitive to per-piece costs, but I am saying that there is NO
other way is nonsense. Nonsense because given the way other analogous
media is handled it's the least likely way e-postage would be handled.
So it's a pure straw man. They'd have to do this, this is unworkable,
so the idea is unworkable. Nonsense, they don't have to "do this"
as your antecedent demands.[q
But in any case, you basic distinction is correct - the receivers bear
the cost burden. However, IMHO it is not only the receivers - the
No, it's not correct.
If that were the case you'd be charging your ISP for the privilege of
letting you have an internet connection.
Huh?
senders and the intermediate systems do as well. However, the cost of
processing unwanted email versus simple bandwidth costs is much greater
on the receiver's side. In other systems cited as examples, there is no
First, "much greater" does not equate with "insignificant" (to the
other side), or ignorable.
Second, at this point for every spam you see probably 100,000 or
thereabouts are being processed due to the number being filtered out
on plausibility grounds (e.g. refusing mail with no legitimate domain
or rdns) and the non-stop, high-powered spew of essentially dictionary
and similar attacks.
So, when you begin to figure in the lower cost per piece you actually
ever see in your mailbox and the relative cost versus the flood of
millions per day you don't see maybe those costs begin to come more
closely into line.
At any rate, no system I can think of outside of e-mail is purely
geared towards resolving some sort of receiver pays other than some
much-maligned, relatively recent cell-phone systems and even on those
there's much activity to either block or change the charging for
marketing calls.
But telephone in general, postal, sender pays.
This fiction seems to only exist on this list.
It makes me wonder what the actual agenda is when there's such
strenuous advocacy for a model which is so far disconnected from
reality.
--
-Barry Shein
Software Tool & Die | bzs(_at_)TheWorld(_dot_)com |
http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202 | Login: 617-739-WRLD
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