Internet CD-ROM list
5 messages in this thread
Larry:
Yours is a key point: when no one has to pay (or pay much) for such a valuable
service it tends to fall into some decline or abuse. The thing that should be
concerning everyone about the "National Info Highways" et al., is the question
of cost. A communications spine of strategic and competitive importance really
can't be left to the good graces of volunteers. And the implication is that
someone willhave to establish a billing mechanism, and infrastructure. And
then what will happen to the enthusiasm for the nets? When someone with
long-term survival in mind starts to assign costs?
Best – Rich
Rich…Well in the case of Internet, it is paid for, but not by the people who
use it. It shouldn't be that hard to set up a billing system whereby cost
could be applied for the time it takes to flash data through the system. If
the "super-highway" will be govt funded then there whould be a provision for
average, tax-paying, citizens to use it at cost. CIS charges only $.25/hr for
their network, after all. Be seeing you.
-Larry
Yes, InterNet abuse will almost certainly be solved via fees. —GeM
As a CI$ and internet user, let me offer one more possibility on the quoting.
Most newsreader software will automaticly quote the entire message you are
replying to including whatever is in it. Usually the headers are automaticly
chopped off and the quoting offset and > are automatic. The problem comes in
removing excess quotes. That requires editing time and effort manually. Too
many people just type on a short response or insert a line here or there as
they read it. I hope I am not guilty of that one. What bothers me most is the
crossposting. Despite have very specific forsale groups for instance. Some
people feel that if they crosspost to every group in the universe they will do
better. Of course I have seen that here also, but even with Tapcis that would
be harder. I find that makes it lesslikely that I will read that message. I do
wish that CI$ would strip off the Internet headers when they forward mail onto
here from the net. Most newsreaders can do that and it makes it hard to send a
reasonable message to you from the other system. Of course that could be the
purpose because this message to you is revenue producing to Compuserve and if I
wrote this on the other terminal, their only revenue is your reading or worse
yet downloading time. They aren't a charity after all; but that makes me wonder
if they necessarily have my best interests in mind in all cases.
You're gripes are certainly warranted, Chris, but then most gripes are
warranted in one manner or another <g>. Guess we just have to learn to better
tolerate the differences of others.
Are you aware that _many_ individuals gripe/whine about long bodies of text
with no paragraph breaks? The message of yours that I'm replying to with this
message is indeed in the category complained about. You produced about 18 lines
of text with no paragraph breaks. As far as I'm concerned it's no big deal.
Sure, it does make quick reads more difficult, but that's not worthy of a
whining complaint, IMO.
I do not wish to silence the creative minds that are often behind annoying
"style" <G> (abusive quoting, lack of paragraph breaks, all caps, poor grammar,
etcetera etcetera… Some of the very best ideas come from uneducated and/or
undisciplined individuals. Guess you already knew that, though.
Happy Trails, —GeM