It is not impossible to set up an usage based system
You could do on the Minitel in France 30 years ago what you just can do now on
the Internet.
Which one is in use now?
The Internet is not suitable for usage charging (at the packet level),
otherwise it would have been done long time ago.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Barry Shein" <bzs(_at_)world(_dot_)std(_dot_)com>
To: "Anti-Spam Research Group - IRTF" <asrg(_at_)irtf(_dot_)org>
Cc: asrg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
Sent: Saturday, 15 November, 2008 8:14:45 AM (GMT+1200) Auto-Detected
Subject: Re: [Asrg] The wonders of telephones and paper mail
Well, once again, straw man alert.
Someone posits that it's impossible to set up and run a system based
on usage charging, asserted with nearly mathematical certainty.
An easy response is gosh, better tell that to all the postal and
telephone services as one example.
This is countered by the procrustean claim that aha, you said (e.g.)
phone service...then CLEARLY what you mean is that all email must have
an earpiece and spiral cord and a numeric keypad and entering email
via numeric keypad would just SUCK so forget this idea.
Wha? Huh? Several cents per each? What? Numeric keypad? Who said that?
(key in Beavis & Butthead voice: you did, you said PHONE COMPANY!)
See, if one argues that it's possible that one day people will fly
(bill for commercial bulk email), and someone else says flying is
impossible, which is countered with "but birds (telcos et al) can fly
(bill) so there might be some way...", the right disproof might NOT be
"BUT MEN DON'T HAVE FEATHERS! QED!"
Let's be honest here (oh god not that):
This particular clique has as a deeply held assumption that all email
must be free and never charged for per item in any way, shape or form.
The rest is just working backwards from that dogma.
You have no doubt it could be done, you just don't want it to be
done. This is the worst kind of demagoguery, the kind which no doubt
infuriates most in other venues. (Ahaha, regulate wall street, are you
kidding, you can't regulate wall street, besides it'd do more harm
than good, ahaha, wall st can only do good, what a dumb idea...oops,
lost *that* election!)
Numeric keypad entry my eye.
I'm sure if you ("you" plural) were generally favorable to the idea
you could see many ways to make this workable (and perhaps stop
ignoring the actual proposals being made over and over and over.)
Bulk commercial emailers should be made to pay. It would produce many
benefits.
This is unlikely to begin to happen until there is some glimmer of a
mechanism to do this.
These sophomoric "proofs" that it's impossible, which only amount to
"*I* don't want it, and I am god of email, it shall bend to my will
alone! THEREFORE it's impossible!" notwithstanding.
On November 14, 2008 at 10:28 asrg(_at_)johnlevine(_dot_)com (John Levine)
wrote:
Perhaps as an exercise we should take a month, stop all spam-related
topics, and discuss how the global postal system or telephone system
should work.
Let's start by looking at how they do work.
Phone and postal systems are either run by national government
monopolies, or else by relatively small sets of private providers who
need a government license to join the club. Members of the club do
not interconnect with non-members; the only way for outsiders to
connect is via a deliberately limited customer interface.
Eleborate and complex billing systems keep track of each message, with
elaborate and complex inter-provider settlement systems managed by
sluggish international bureaucracies (the ITU and UPU) that are part
of the UN.
Except for limited places that offer unmetered service, e.g., local
calls in North America, every message costs at least several cents,
typically more.
Is this the future of the Internet? I sure hope not. For a taste of
what phones would be like if they were run like e-mail, look at VoIP,
which outside of walled gardens like Skype has roughly the same spam
problems as e-mail, and just as little success dealing with it. Google
for RUCUS for more details.
R's,
John
PS: If it's so easy to run a phone company, why isn't World a CLEC?
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-Barry Shein
The World | bzs(_at_)TheWorld(_dot_)com | http://www.TheWorld.com
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Software Tool & Die | Public Access Internet | SINCE 1989 *oo*
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