From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npoiv!alice!sjb
Newsgroups: net.news
Title: Re: USENET Inc - what do YOU think
Article-I.D.: alice.1392
Posted: Mon Jan 10 22:31:36 1983
Received: Tue Jan 11 01:53:44 1983
References: cbosgd.2952

The ideas of control and funding do not strike well with me.  I will
address them separately here:

1)  Allowing one group to control the net is not a pleasant idea at
    all.  PLATO (now run by CDC) has a good idea in that one organization
    cannot get more than x number of connections to it.  This means
    that no one organization will ever have the muscle to take over
    PLATO.  If we allow one organization to run the net, we will be
    at its mercy.  Further, if it pays the bills, it will have every
    right to dictate what it's paying for, i.e. direct or indirect
    censorship of the net, at the very least dictating what can and
    cannot be discussed.

2)  Requiring funding has many flaws, the worst of which is that if
    you impose dues, fees, whatever on member sites or individual
    users, you will (1) probably find that a GREAT many sites will
    immediately drop out of the net because they do not want/are not
    able to pay the costs and (2) find that people will go out of
    their way to get around paying dues.  Now, if we lose, say,
    half of the net, we might as well pack it in.  Connections,
    some of them major, will be broken and the entire topology of
    the net will be disrupted, not to mention the loss of half of
    our contributors (I refer specifically to the loss of a good
    portion of our 'technical pool')  Avoiding paying for the net
    will include forgery of articles (now a VERY simple task),
    bootlegging (as Mark said), and even forging of entire machines:
    Given the present UUCP software, I can set a machine up, call
    it anything I want (specifically the name of another machine
    on the net), and send news to any other machine on the net (since
    there is no way to prevent someone from sending to you) as if
    I were a paying machine.  If you're going to charge individual
    users, again, you will see a great many drop out.  Personally,
    I would refuse to pay a subscription fee for the net out of my
    own money and I would not except my employers to pay for it for me.
    We are NOT running a newspaper or a magazine here, and I don't
    think we should try.

In closing, I would like to say that the net is now a free format,
open grounds for discussions on any topic.  Those who wish to partake
in the discussions are free t; those who do not are free not to.
The net is not now a business, it is like a gigantic gabbing session.
No one tells anyone else what they can/cannot post, and no one tells
anyone else what they can/cannot read.  What people are suggesting
is turning the net into a business (both profit making and non profit
making)  If I want to read a paper, I'll go out and buy one, but I
can't put anything I want into that paper.  I can with the net.  If
you turn it into a paper, people will not be able to do that as freely
as they now can.

Adam