BUT: what it woudl have done would have almost certainly made schools be
-responsible- for their use, and cut down on the really crazy "let's eat more
bandwidth because it is fun and free" hacks they pursued [where iguanacam is
probably my favorite exemplar for that kind of thing, and just think that there
might not have been as much of a "september effect"]
Sorry for my previous post that was clearly off topic. I'll try to tie it in
here. How many of us list managers would run their lists if they had to pay for
every message they sent? I know I wouldn't. I would have to actually start
running a business, billing everyone on my list for receiving the message so I
could recover my costs. Then I might not feel like letting just anyone browse
my list archives for free, either. I don't see this economic model being very
compatible with advancing a powerful form of communication. When you don't have
to worry about paying for every letter you type, you are much more likely to
express yourself better and more completely and in ways you might not have
thought about before.
It is my firm belief that the vast amount of bandwidth available on tap to all
comers is what makes the Internet such an exciting communications device in the
first place.
-todd-
