Article View: ne.general
Article #2145Re: Letter to NSF re: Internet Pricing
From: Tom Reingold
Date: Tue, 10 May 1994 14:41
Date: Tue, 10 May 1994 14:41
22 lines
2317 bytes
2317 bytes
Just before the fall of the Soviet Union and the opening up of other countries in the Soviet Bloc, I read an article in the New Yorker about a Hungarian visiting the US. He was struck that this country is, in many ways, more communist than Hungary. He was referring to the fact that salt and ketchup sit on restaurant tables, free for the taking. In Hungary, he said, they would be stolen in a flash. Why? Because salt and ketchup are so cheap and plentiful here, we don't need to steal it. The government doesn't need to provide it either, since we just don't worry about salt and ketchup. I expect network access to become cheap enough that we won't need any government help to get it to our doors. I do believe that some things work best with a socialist mechanism. But not this one, because it is -- or will be -- cheap and plentiful enough. Use government for things that the free market does not provide. -- Tom Reingold AT&T Bell Labs, Crawford Hill Laboratory, Holmdel, NJ, USA tommy@big.att.com or att!big!tommy
Technical Details
Message-ID:
<tommy.768580901@big.att.com>Path:
arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!bga.com!news.sprintlink.net!sundog.tiac.net!usenet.elf.com!rpi!usc!howland.reston.ans.net!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!att-in!nntpa!big.att.com!tommyReferences:
<CpHsws...Ar5@roscom.com> <IS6Mu*gd0@fantasyfarm.com> <kudzuCpIows.Hr4@netcom.com> <pYvMu*kd0@fantasyfarm.com>Show Full Headers
Complete Article Headers
X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 1130cb,95fdc47eead517ab X-Google-Attributes: gid1130cb,public X-Google-Thread: fa37c,95fdc47eead517ab X-Google-Attributes: gidfa37c,public X-Google-Thread: 10a12a,95fdc47eead517ab X-Google-Attributes: gid10a12a,public X-Google-Thread: f824f,95fdc47eead517ab X-Google-Attributes: gidf824f,public X-Google-Thread: f8b06,95fdc47eead517ab X-Google-Attributes: gidf8b06,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1994-05-10 08:28:27 PST Newsgroups: ne.general,ba.general,nj.general,ny.general,nh.general Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!bga.com!news.sprintlink.net!sundog.tiac.net!usenet.elf.com!rpi!usc!howland.reston.ans.net!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!att-in!nntpa!big.att.com!tommy From: tommy@big.att.com (Tom Reingold) Subject: Re: Letter to NSF re: Internet Pricing Message-ID: <tommy.768580901@big.att.com> Originator: tommy@nerd Sender: news@nntpa.cb.att.com (Netnews Administration) Nntp-Posting-Host: nerd.hoh.att.com Reply-To: tommy@big.att.com Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Crawford Hill Laboratory, Holmdel, NJ, USA References: <CpHsws...Ar5@roscom.com> <IS6Mu*gd0@fantasyfarm.com> <kudzuCpIows.Hr4@netcom.com> <pYvMu*kd0@fantasyfarm.com> Distribution: usa,ne,nj,ba,nh,ny,na Date: Tue, 10 May 1994 14:41:41 GMT Lines: 22