🚀 go-pugleaf

worley@compass.com (Dale Worley) writes:

>Up until now, The Net has been like the Hippie Movement.  We get a
>great playground, while businesses and the government pay for it.  The
>trouble is that The Net is not just a plaything anymore.  If we want
>to have it become an "information infrastructure" for the country,
>it's got to grow much, much larger than it is now, and it won't be
>able to live as a parasite.  It's got to go commercial, and that means
>that people are going to have to pay for their usage.

well, not really commercial, but it must become self-financing.
i received quite some flames when i started selling free software
on tapes to finance my archive, but that's the way to go for
individual's projects, since one won't get enough donations.

keeping the net (news & mail) going, however, is surprisingly
cheap if enough individuals get organized: i now pay ~$14 for a
full news feed and mail plus local phone call charges.
through a sort-of semi-commercial thing a 64Kbit isdn
line to the german backbone will be installed soon.
several project like that are currently active in germany
and are in the process of conglomerating into a whole
organizational unit. not bad for a bunch of (mostly) private
people, eh?
-- 
   Heiko Blume <-+-> src@scuzzy.in-berlin.de <-+-> (+49 30) 691 88 93 [voice!]
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