RE: PHOTO-3D digest 1874

[P3D John W Roberts <roberts@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Sun, 9 Feb 1997 18:21:11 -0600
>From: P3D  <mol@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

>Already pay 'per minute' charges here in the UK via local call telephone 
>rate. Good idea if you ask me. Its all these freebe PSTN users who are 
>breaking the back of the band-width available on the web. What's a small
>telephone charge if its keeps people off who can't tell one of a phone
>from another anyway?

>If bandwidth speed improves, things will get faster ansd cheaper for me!

>:  Maurice Smith            : 69 Commonside West      :
>:  Microscopy-UK            : Mitcham,                :
>:  A NoN-Profit-making Org. : Surrey. CR4 4HB         :
>:  for Amateur Science.     : England.                :

I object to the use of P3D as a forum for moralizing on why
unmetered access must be done away with for the good of all humankind.
Here in the States, we get plenty of that in the newspapers already -
AOL recently got more subscribers than it had anticipated, and suddenly
all the pundits have discovered that they can be hailed as visionaries
by proclaiming that this incident Proves that "flat monthly rate" access
Must Go. Similarly, there are serious discussions (not involving anyone
in authority, fortunately) that this Internet thingy makes too much
information available to people, causing them to suffer Information Overload,
unless our heroic news media can be persuaded to step in, cut off that
dangerously excessive information, and filter it down to a manageable size
so we'll know what to think. (They're talking about *blocking* access to
unfiltered information.) Another group is concerned that They are using
Our Internet for trivial purposes, so Somebody should build (and pay for)
a whole other Internet that's just for the worthwhile stuff that We like
to do.

A few very brief points, and then I'll shut up on the subject:
 - What's so inherently Bad about a multiple-rate structure, with a lower
     but metered rate, and a higher but unmetered rate? Paying enough to
     support the services is a separate issue from requiring that every
     minute be accounted for.
 - When I drive on a toll road, I don't get upset if they fail to put up
     a toll booth every few hundred yards and charge one cent at each
     booth, or even if they fail to put up a toll booth at every interchange,
     so maybe somebody gets to drive a few miles more than I do without
     paying extra. At some point, the inconvenience of all those stops
     outweighs any fractional cost saving.
 - If I'm doing research on the network for an employer, it's much more
     convenient to do the paperwork for access on a flat monthly basis
     than it is to write up a justification for each proposed access attempt
     and estimated connection time, and be reprimanded for wasting money
     every time a search doesn't pan out, and so on.
 - Those people who don't know one end of the phone from another (and the
     advertisers who hope to attract them) are paying for the future 
     improvements in the network. It's shortsighted to think the network 
     we have now will be the perfect solution for all time to come, 
     provided that we can just kick off enough people. With even
     a hundred or a thousand times the bandwidth it has now, the network
     can support services that we only dimly see now, but which if we
     ever get we'll wonder how we ever did without. How about real-time
     high-resolution stereo VR?
 - This principle also applies to 3D photography - if we had 50 million
     people who didn't know one end of a 3D camera from another but were
     wildly enthusiastic and eager to learn, we'd soon be able to buy
     spectacular stereo equipment off the shelf in the local shopping
     center.

I don't mean to attack this particular post - it accurately reflects the
viewpoint of a large number of people, but I believe it's a viewpoint
which could severely curtail the long-term potential of the network.
Please direct followups to one of the many network policy discussion
places, and reserve P3D for 3D.

John R (putting the spoon and the box of soap flakes back in the pantry :-)


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