Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!killer!pollux!dalsqnt!rpp386!jfh
From: jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US (The Beach Bum)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin
Subject: More on the Serious Dilemma.
Summary: A suggested investment ...
	 ... a prediction of things to come.
Message-ID: <6849@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US>
Date: 20 Sep 88 01:00:55 GMT
Distribution: world,!to.portal
Organization: HASA, "S" Division
Lines: 57

I was reading mail and noted an entry which asked if portal actually
contributed anything to the net in return for the burden they place
on the machines and people, that's us, responsible for seeing to it
that the network continues to operate.

This is part of the UUCP map entry for Portal.  For those of you who are
just casual readers and aren't familiar with UUCP maps, I'll narrate
as I go ...

#N      .portal.com, portal
-- this is the site name, portal.  they are also in the .com domain.
#F      sun.com
-- this is their MX (mail exchange) forwarder, which means they can
-- receive Internet mail through sun.com.  so, all their mail pretty
-- much clogs up the internet.
#U       
-- list of USENET feeds.  empty?  i wonder why?
#W      portal!jel (John Little); Mon Aug 22 09:39:38 PDT 1988
#
portal  .portal.com
portal= portal.portal.com, portal.com
portal  sun(EVENING), atari(EVENING), hoptoad(EVENING), claris(EVENING)
-- list of mail connections.  hmmm.  not too many, are there?

What we have here is a system which consistently ranks in the top five
producers of news traffic.  What they don't do is contribute anything
back to the net.  No news feeds, no mail traffic, NOTHING.  They rake
in the money from the kiddies, and spit out megabytes of garbage.
Even the mail connections they list are of a less than useful variety.

As our little friends have been so kind to point out, Portal
Communications has annual receipts in excess of $1,800,000 and expenses
consisting most likely of salaries and phone lines.  The principles
are getting rich on the backs of the net and no one seems to care.

Unless steps are taken to curtail this wanton abuse of the good will
of the net, I will take whatever steps needed to raise the required
capital to create a Portal Communications Company clone which I will
then use to compete directly, head to head, with .portal.com for
their revenue and subscriber base.  The profits which are being
generated are most certainly high enough that subscriptions could be
sold for well under $10 per month while still guaranteeing that I
will be a millionare before too long.

You are invited to watch, or join, or come to your senses and remove
that site from existence.  And should the need arise, you will also
be invited to invest your money in this venture.  Surely an oppurtunity
such as this only comes once or twice in a lifetime.  UNLESS, someone
acts now.  These are not empty words.  Surely there are other John
Little's willing to make the big bucks babysitting a BBS.  And surely
there are investors willing to produce the needed funds to create that
BBS.
-- 
John F. Haugh II (jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US)                   HASA, "S" Division

    "If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong."
                -- Norm Schryer