Reducing Usenet Bandwidth

Sat Feb 9 05:00:33 UTC 2002

>>If you ask a question, you should pay. If I provide you with useful help,
you should pay. If I suggest a commercial solution to your problem, who
should pay? If I harass you for not knowing the answer to the question, I
should pay.<<

Hmm, reminds me of the Compu$erve Forums, which, ironically, met their demise
(imho) when the WWW (and Usenet) started to blossom.

ex 70720,151

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Schwartz" <davids at webmaster.com>
To: "Stephen Stuart" <stuart at tech.org>; <nanog at merit.edu>
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2002 3:32 PM
Subject: Re: Reducing Usenet Bandwidth

>
>
> >I would argue that what USENET needs is a way for the cost of
> >publication to be incurred by the publisher; storing the data in your
> >own repository (or repositories) while pointers get flooded through
> >the USENET distribution system would give publishers an incentive to
> >do garbage collection that they do not have today.
>
> Like many Internet settlement schemes, this seems to not make much sense. If
> a person reads USENET for many years enjoying all of its wisdom, why should
> he get a free ride? And why should the people who supply that wisdom have to
> pay to do so? A USENET transaction is presumed to benefit both parties, or
> else they wouldn't have configured their computers to make that transaction.
>
> Does it make sense for the New York Times to pay me to read it? But perhaps
> it does for the Weekly Advertiser.
>
> The reason that automated schemes such as "publisher pays" will fail is
> because determining who "should" pay is too complex for automated schemes.
> You will just push around who takes advantage of who.
>
> If you ask a question, you should pay. If I provide you with useful help,
> you should pay. If I suggest a commercial solution to your problem, who
> should pay? If I harass you for not knowing the answer to the question, I
> should pay.
>
> DS
>
>