Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!isishq!doug
From: doug@isishq.FIDONET.ORG (Doug Thompson)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Networks, who pays
Message-ID: <801.23934295@isishq.FIDONET.ORG>
Date: 30 Nov 88 05:04:06 GMT
Organization: International Student Information Service -- Headquarters
Lines: 73


 
 b>From: bowles@millar.UUCP 
 
 b> 
 b>Admit, though, that in the past 7-8 years the educational world 
 b>has been largely what's produced "Usenet", such as it is.  We'll 
 b>all agree that 7-8 years is a LONG time, but the educational 
 b>(grass-roots) world can get SOMETHING done.  
 b> 
 b>What the educational community can't do is get into consumer's 
 b>homes, with new or modified services.  Corporations can - look at 
 b>what cable TV has done around the country; utilities can; the 
 b>government can - but usually doesn't.  
 
Well, the situation is not so bad. Right now anyone can buy an 
account on a uucp machine for $10 a month and $6 per hour DATAPAC 
charges in Canada. Similar facilities exist in the US for 
comparable prices. This is usable. 
 
Without any further technology (such as an automated uucp link to 
your home computer which *is* being done, albeit only 
experimentally) we have a continent-wide e-mail system that is 
quite cheap. 
 
A problem, of sorts, is that it is being done by PeaceNET and its 
affiliates and is an explictly non-commercial service for 
non-profit groups, and the "community-sector". Nevertheless, the 
economic viability of it is pretty well demonstrated. 
 
Anyone who can afford a 286 box and Xenix can put up his own uucp 
site. Heck, you can even do it, though somewhat less elegantly on 
an 8088 box with DOS and UFGATE and a lot of fiddling about. 
 
A Xenix 286 or 386 uucp system can support quite a number of 
users, in the hundreds, so the cost of creating a site locally 
can be spread over many users, reducing the per-user cost to 
something very modest. 
 
So it's not a matter of whether it can be done economically, it's a 
problem of simply doing what we already know how to do. 
 
That's a problem of raising capital, assembling the 
infrastructure, and then marketing the service. 
 
Government rarely does things for which there is no substantial 
demand. The non-business demand for e-mail will be small until 
the non-business users of e-mail become numerous. They will not 
become numerous until inexpensive e-mail options are available. 
 
Government maybe *should* do something, and in  France, with 
Minitel, government actually got into the game quite early. I'm 
pessimistic about convincing legislators who aren't really sure 
what a computer is that there is a need for a public computer 
network.  
 
Bankers are just as hard to convince, because the market demand 
has to be developed, it's not visibly there. Getting a loan to 
open a hamburger stand is easy, getting one to start an e-mail 
service is much more tricky.  
 
What I've chosen to do is simply do it. We operate a very small 
public access e-mail system with links to uucp/internet/fidonet. 
We charge, people pay. We're growing, Rome wasn't built in a day. 
 
=Doug 
 


--  
 Doug Thompson - via FidoNet node 1:221/162
     UUCP: ...!watmath!isishq!doug
 Internet: doug@isishq.FIDONET.ORG