Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!cca!mirror!premise!brian
From: brian@premise.ZONE1.COM (Brian Moran)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: How to eliminate the cost of over 1/5 (or more) of net traffic
Message-ID: <221@premise.ZONE1.COM>
Date: 11 May 88 15:34:33 GMT
References: <1616@looking.UUCP>
Reply-To: brian@premise.UUCP (Brian Moran)
Organization: Premise, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 84

The "Saving $228,000" sounds great.  There is a slight problem, however. With 
the current distribution method, the 240k cost is not incurred by a single 
billable entity (nor a group of entities).  The $12k replacement scheme would 
unfortunately bring these "hidden" charges to light, since the costs would have
to be recovered in a more direct fashion (net costs are hidden in phone bills
for many sites).  Also, those "free" links (unless they are a direct serial
line or something) sometimes really aren't.

I'd really like to see the traffic in binaries decrease, since to me it seems
the abuse of a good thing (the net).  What particularly bothers me is in some
groups messages like:

"Hey, parts 1 and 2 (of 14) of the latest "FrogSnax fractal DNA sequence 
modeller and disk formatting utilities" didn't make it to my site. Can someone 
repost it?"

which is then followed (ALL TOGETHER NOW, in n-part harmony) by:

"Hey, we didn't get parts 3 and 7." (ed. note: A QUANTUM LEAP IN STATISTICAL
INFERENCE FOLLOWS:) "Looks like the propogation is screwed up. Maybe we
should repost the whole thing." (keyboard spring resilience and $$ are
consumed at an alarming rate).

Perhaps if the actual transmission costs were born by the people who are 
interested in these things, there may be less wastage, and more concern
for these "bean counter-ian" tasks.

How about a scheme like this:

-	binaries and sources posted ONCE.
-	didn't get the information? well then, dial up (yes, use YOUR PHONE)
	a regional (hey, let's get cheap and just make ONE for each 
	continent) distribution center, and get it yourself with anonymous
	uucp.  Oh, ARPA/internet sites. You guys (& gals) may be charged for
	usage of what has previously been for free for a long time.  
        You may like doing uucp as well after you get your first bill 
	(1/2 :-), only ; have you read about some of the charge-back schemes
	lately?).

People will still be able to mail stuff around (thereby circumventing any
savings) but I bet the few that did this would still be less than the 
wholesale bit-shipping (say that fast a few times) going on now.

Or, ever more draconian:

-	Binaries and sources don't get posted. DESCRIPTIONS and where
	to get it gets posted.  A person would actually have to be 
	interested enough in the post to expend EFFORT to get what
	he/she wants.  This might even cut down on the "COLLECTIVE
	DISK STORAGE CONSCIOUSNESS" - how many of you have tucked 
	away that posting, thinking "Hmmm, this looks interesting"
	only to have those disk blocks sit around, untouched, until
	you were out of disk space? (Oh, those of you with unlimited
	quotas -- you either don't realize (yet) that you are doing
	this, or have an iron will). (Why do capitalized words in
	otherwise normal text remind me of ZIPPY?) CURE THAT JUNK
	BINARY HABIT! READ A BOOK INSTEAD!

Well, that seems like enough. What do I prefer? Hmmm. I think distributions
should be accomplished by encoding binaries and sources alike using 
the "Kansas City" cassette encoding method, and having a "cassette of the
month club".  Either that, or paper tape.  Can't make this stuff easy
for the "computer weenies" out there.

(okay, okay, okay, before you hit the 'r' or 'f' key - some of this stuff is
tongue in cheek, some of it (well, I thought at least) may deserve some
fleeting increase in overall brain activity (don't try this at home - people
who understand these things are TRAINED PROFESSIONALS!)).

Brian K. Moran            { ...harvard!mit-eddie,...!mirror}!premise!brian
Premise, Inc.             brian@premise.zone1.com
3 Cambridge Center
Cambridge, MA 02142       (617) 225-0422 

P.S. Of course, this should NEVER be used to more directly pass on the costs
of groups like soc.singles, alt.flame and their ilk. (ooooh doggie, I can
feel them keyboards heating up now...)
	
	

-- 
Brian K. Moran            { ...harvard!mit-eddie,...!mirror}!premise!brian
Premise, Inc.             brian@premise.zone1.com
3 Cambridge Center
Cambridge, MA 02142       (617) 225-0422