🚀 go-pugleaf

In <3lqhfl$7s9@crl2.crl.com> dk@crl.com (David A. Kaye) writes:

>In order for the Internet provider to make any money, they have 
>to take in more money than they pay in salaries, electricity, equipment, 
>advertising, taxes, phones, etc.  I'd say that for $17.50 a month, you 
>can get maybe 5-10 minutes of customer service before the Internet 
>service provider runs a loss.

The same applies, for example, to manufacturers of appliances.  I
recall reading a story about some Japanese company that was planning to
sell appliances in the USA.  It had no network of repair shops in the
US.  According to the story, the management of the company decided that
it would be too costly at that stage to set up enough repair centers.
They decided instead to concentrate on making the product so reliable
that repairs would be negligibly few.  That would keep warranty service
costs low and not having many repair shops would make little
difference.  It turned out that this strategy worked very well.

I'm sure that if this appliance company had been instead planning to
be an ISP, it would have had as one of its goals:

   Don't delete accounts accidentally.  But if you do, make sure the
   deletion is reversible for a while.

There are a number of strategies to achieve this goal, or minimize the
costs of failing to achieve the goal.  One that helps is:

     When deleting a user's home directory, move it elsewhere first,
     then delete it after sufficient time has passed that we are sure
     we won't need it back.
-- 
Rahul Dhesi <dhesi@rahul.net>
"please ignore Dhesi" -- Mark Crispin <mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU>