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From: preece@ccvaxa.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.news.group
Subject: Re: Doomsday cometh?  Are you sure?
Message-ID: <3500010@ccvaxa>
Date: Mon, 16-Sep-85 10:21:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ccvaxa.3500010
Posted: Mon Sep 16 10:21:00 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Sep-85 04:05:52 EDT
References: <863@burl.UUCP>
Lines: 30
Nf-ID: #R:burl.UUCP:-86300:ccvaxa:3500010:000:1491
Nf-From: ccvaxa.UUCP!preece    Sep 16 09:21:00 1985


> The reason I presume the influx of small machines will degrade netnews
> is quite clear.  They could easily outnumber all of the big machines in
> a very short order and represent many thousands of new users.  /*
> Written 12:37 pm  Sep 10, 1985 by lauren@vortex.UUCP in
> ccvaxa:net.news.group */
----------
Not to deny that the net is unlikely to continue in its present form,
but I think there's a logical inconsistency here.  The small machines
deluge consists of small machines, with only one or a few users.  It's
hard to see how they're going to have much effect on the net compared
to the big sites with hundreds of users each.  They WILL have an effect
on the nature of the net, though: it will be harder and harder to find
feeds.  The current distribution method, coupled with the current
volume, makes feeding to small sites just as expensive as feeding
to large sites.  It's hard to see how even the friendliest news
feed could go on supplying feeds to all who ask when there are
dozens or hundreds of one-user Unix sites in the local environment.

Much as I dislike the idea of mandatory oversight that has been
proposed for stargate, I think some kind of mass distribution
system is going to turn up eventually, operating over some kind
of high bandwidth medium. Cable tv?  FM radio?  Whatever.  Then
everybody can get the bulk feed and the only phone costs will be
for passing messages into the distribution.

-- 
scott preece
gould/csd - urbana
ihnp4!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!preece