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[Asrg] My take on e-postage

2004-04-28 19:11:23
in reply


 > So if we take that into consideration what is the limit on the
 > number of
 > emails for free or charged 10,20 per day ?

One would imagine it'd become a marketing issue, just like the monthly
price of a connection and how fast that is, etc.


Marketing drives cost down, not up. take a look at bandwidth charges now and
5 years ago.

If I was to sell a hosting service and wanted to beat the competition I
might say "email at only 10c per 10,000 or get your hosting here and we will
throw in free email!

if you have to "imagine" something perhaps you have not considered all
possibilities.


 > Who polices that level. what about China who polices it there?

Again, the market.


Perhaps I was not clear enough. I was talking about e-mail spewing out of
places like China.
Do you think they will stop it? and if they do a hundred other countries
will take it up.
do we wholesale block entire countries? Does that become censorship?


 > I will start writing one as soon as e-postage looks inevitable!

Yeah well you could also try setting up your own phone and postage
systems and tell us how it works out.


Take a look at all the other p2p programs, e-mail could become irrelevant.
If you don't think a lone group of programmers can introduce such a system
look at the software you use everyday
especially open source, Linux and Apache are two prime examples.

To compare an e-mail style system with a bricks, mortar, hardware and
employee system is simply trying to fool the more gullible of us, there is
simply no comparison.

Furthermore the bricks and mortar and hardware are all in place. all you
need is the enthusiasm. add a fee to e-mail and overnight you create the
enthusiasm.

Many Many programmers would see such fees as an attack on the freedom of the
internet. an attempt by governments to shut down the free flow of
information under the GUISE of spam control.



Who suggested $.20? Who suggested it'd be recipient-pays?

 > And who pays for the duplicates we all receive?

Who suggested it'd be recipient-pays?

I wasn't in general, but for a list such as this it is inevitable. does the
ASRG pay? of course not. For a list like this it must be recipient pays.

Who else would?



Regards
Chris



-----Original Message-----
From: asrg-admin(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org 
[mailto:asrg-admin(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org]On Behalf Of Barry
Shein
Sent: Thursday, 29 April 2004 6:34 AM
To: Chris
Cc: John Levine; asrg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org; william(_at_)elan(_dot_)net
Subject: RE: [Asrg] My take on e-postage



Well, for starters I want to thank you for being brutally honest about
the concerns regarding e-postage because I think what you say is
behind every other criticism. That said...

On April 28, 2004 at 14:07 asrg(_at_)rebel(_dot_)com(_dot_)au (Chris) wrote:
 >
 > An e-postage system would need to account for the every day person. why
 > should they be charged for sending what is currently free?

Because the current totally free system isn't working very well as
evidenced by our convening here (that is, spam!)

Unlimited free resources tend to get abused if there's some way to
profit from that use. And that's about where we are right now.

 > So if we take that into consideration what is the limit on the
number of
 > emails for free or charged 10,20 per day ?

One would imagine it'd become a marketing issue, just like the monthly
price of a connection and how fast that is, etc.

 > Who polices that level. what about China who polices it there?

Again, the market.

As to China, this is probably the least of China's problems. Do we
really think we can solve all of China's problems right here or should
even take them into account?

How about the fact that all the e-mail headers and SMTP etc not to
mention the RFCs are in English? Don't you think that poses some
disadvantage to the average Chinese person? How would you like it if
all that were in Chinese?

It's not somewhere we're really set up to go here.

 > Ok set the level at zero. the average Joe will cop it sweet if
it keeps spam
 > out of their mail box.
 >
 > Does anyone here think e-mail will survive beyond a fee ?

If the fee is reasonable, like zero for most common, personal usage,
etc, yes.

 > If so go ahead and introduce a fee. see how long it takes before an
 > alternative becomes available.
 >
 > I will start writing one as soon as e-postage looks inevitable!

Yeah well you could also try setting up your own phone and postage
systems and tell us how it works out.

 >
 > Regards
 > Chris
 >
 > P.S. How many of you would subscribe to this list if it was
going to cost
 > $0.20 every time

Who suggested $.20? Who suggested it'd be recipient-pays?

 > And who pays for the duplicates we all receive?

Who suggested it'd be recipient-pays?

--
        -Barry Shein

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