CompuServe Messages

Hi, Don– If the USGS goes private, I expect that some of its products will become more expensive or unavailable, but I also expect many to remain on the market (whether from a private USGS or someone else), and some to even be improved and become cheaper. The price does not have to go up for a popular item – a private company may produce some products more cheaply, and market them better, allowing the price to drop. I am fairly confident topo maps would be in this class, given that lots of people have use for them. The street info of those maps is clearly in that class; DeLorme is already selling them despite having a subsidized competitor (the USGS). But for the most part, there is no way to know which products would go that way and which the other way. What I most fear in a USGS privatization is that more geological info would become trade secrets. If oil and mining companies are not getting geological info from a public USGS (I am talking about previously-unknown info, not what it currently public info), they will more often be finding it out themselves, but not inclined to sell that info in many cases because competitors might use it. A privatized USGS or a competitor might find the info and offer it to sale to those oil and mining companies, but the customers would be willing to pay high prices only if it is not being sold at low prices to the public, and the highest prices if it is an "exclusive". –Doug