While the great debate regarding e-postage and micropayments is certainly
amusing to watch, it doesn't seem to be accomplishing very much.
I would like to humbly make the following suggestion:
1. An E-Postage system represents a specialized type of Micropayment
architecture.
2. Micropayment architectures have an enormous number of uses above and
beyond E-Postage systems.
3. The mailing list should not focus on implementing its own Micropayment
architecture, but rather:
(a) Determine whether a working micropayment architecture would represent
a feasible solution to SPAM
(b) Determine whether an E-Postage system would create a unique set of
requirements for a working micropayments architecture.
(c) Attempt to ballpark a set of parameters that describe the boundary
conditions necessary to make an E-Postage system feasible.
For example,
(i) Transaction costs must be less than X
(ii) The system must scale to support Y requests
(iii) Peak load over time can be modelled by equation Z
Personally, I started life as an academic economist. As such, I am very
biased in favor of user fees.
E-Postage seems like the best way to proceed, but I have no illusions that
that this list is going to develop a workable architecture.
Ultimately, I very much hope that ISPs are forced to adopt business models
based on charging for bandwidth and bursting.
I would even go so far as to argue that consumers have a vested interest
in adopting point-to-point encryption to destroy the ability of the ISPs
subsidize bandwidth with "value added services"
However, that;s an argument for another day.
Richard Willey
Strategic Marketing
Symantec Corporation
Office:
(408) 517-7740
Interoffice:
6 [408] 7740
Mobile:
(408) 410-7112
:
Hail Ants
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