On April 29, 2004 at 11:14 asrg(_at_)rebel(_dot_)com(_dot_)au (Chris) wrote:
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.
(Just to be picky, by "costs" you mean "prices", right?)
Well, if you said "in the case of bandwidth marketing drove the prices
down, not up" perhaps I'd agree, but I'd be hard-put to agree that's
some sort of universal principle, that it always drives prices down.
For example, in the case of MS their aggressive marketing gave them
enough of an effective monopoly in some software areas that they could
raise prices (and costs.) That's not too obscure an example is it?
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!
Unless there were costs, something akin to settlement, where you had
to pay for the amount of email that flowed through your system and,
presumably, somehow pass those costs on to your customers.
Obviously if we're giving away free stamps then it ultimately doesn't
matter much what stamp you stick on something, may as well print your
own.
> 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?
Well, it'd certainly be reasonable, after some transition period, to
only accept e-mail with a valid e-postage stamp.
Is that censorship? I dunno. Is forcing them to use SMTP 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 we could start by re-inventing the entire e-mail system from
scratch then I don't think solving the spam problem is all that
difficult.
I believe most everyone agrees with that.
But you've got this little problem like a billion or two computers out
there who already do e-mail this way, and firewalls and corporate
policies and routers and servers etc.
One nice thing about e-postage is that it could, in theory, be slipped
right w/o particularly interfering with end-users. For example, for an
entire corp it could be done at the edge server, or at the ISP by some
agreement.
It's not unique in that regard, but it's useful to keep in mind that
this is a very important kind of quality for a proposed solution.
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.
No problem with that.
Um, what are they gonna do when they're flooded with spam through this
new system?
How does painting the car yellow make it run faster? etc.
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.
You do understand the difference between free as in beer and free as
in speech, right?
Does having to affix postage to your letters constitute an
infringement on your freedom?
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?
The sender?
--
-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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