Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!isishq!doug From: doug@isishq.FIDONET.ORG (Doug Thompson) Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Re: Revolutions and Fidonet Message-ID: <800.2393428F@isishq.FIDONET.ORG> Date: 30 Nov 88 04:52:10 GMT Organization: International Student Information Service -- Headquarters Lines: 52 RC>From: rjc@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Richard Caley) In article <14578@mimsy.UUCP> anderson@secd.cs.umd.edu (Gary RC>Anderson) writes: RC>>How much security? Who pays? RC>>How much access? Who pays? RC> RC>>Is it reasonable to use revenues collected from RC>>poor families who have no RC>>computers in order to finance a computer network RC>>for relatively well off academics and business persons? RC> RC>The same could be asked about roads. It turns out that it is in RC>everyones interest to have decent roads since that makes it RC>cheeper to transport goods. The point is that it is not business RC>people who would benefit so much as businesses and that shoud RC>force prices down. Of corse it is open to question whether that RC>would offset the cost of the infrastructure. Well, roads and the post office present reasonable examples. A society, rich and poor alike, benefits from having such things. Yet users, through fuel taxes, vehicle taxes, postage stamps, etc., pay the bulk of the operating costs, based on amount used. Further, the cost of computers is steadily coming down, and a home computer is now in the price range of a major home appliance. Most poor people do manage to acquire refrigerators, television sets, etc., so I'm not so sure that we will long be in a situation where one has to be rich in order to participate or make use of computer networks directly. Indeed, except for the fact that you need an expensive capital item to do computer communication, the real costs of moving text data today are much less than the real costs of moving text data through the post office. Thus, this should end up being a boon to poor people by reducing the marginal cost of communication. As for the capital goods, the basic computer and modem, I can see lots of reasons for a state to subsidize access for poor families. In the end, it's a whole lot more useful to all of us if everyone is connected. =Doug -- Doug Thompson - via FidoNet node 1:221/162 UUCP: ...!watmath!isishq!doug Internet: doug@isishq.FIDONET.ORG