Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site watmath.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!bstempleton
From: bstempleton@watmath.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: The poster should pay for news
Message-ID: <5574@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 24-Jul-83 01:58:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: watmath.5574
Posted: Sun Jul 24 01:58:58 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 24-Jul-83 02:54:29 EDT
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 28

Wouldn't it be nice if the poster paid for the cost of transmitting
the news rather than those who get it?  This would be like the postal
service or private publishing.  What we have now is the receivers
and forwarders paying the cost.  If we had USENET Inc. this could be
arranged.   Then all the xxx@mit-eddies and Mad Programmers and people
on Soap Boxes and warlocks in dungeons and users of overworked keywords
and users of net.test and net.general would get a bill (no names, no suit)
for what they posted that month.  One sure effect would be that people
would shut up.

Essentially, what I think we want is a system where the poster has to
pay but the receiver can accept collect messages.  Thus most people will
say, "I'll accept collect from the following people", where those people
will be digest moderators (magazine editors) and wonderful people
like myself ( 8-> )

They might accept certain groups collect and some not.  Thus if you want
to post, you can pay for it, in which case everybody gets it, or you
can send it to a moderator who can moderate it, or you can just send it
out and hope that enough people are willing to take it collect.

Note that libertarians (like me, in my own fashion) can't complain about
this idea because it includes the current system as a subset.  If people
love the current system so much, they can elect to get everything collect
and get the same mess they have now.  For myself, I know a fair number
of people I would not accept collect....
-- 
	Brad Templeton - Waterloo, Ont. (519) 886-7304