From: nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 13:27:14 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Remailers and ecash
Message-ID: <199710020500.HAA13819@basement.replay.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




Given: We want more (reliable) remailers
       But someone has to pay for them

Conjecture: New remailers can be financed by charging the users a fee per
            message to use the remailers.

   If a remailer charges a fee, the number of users will be reduced to
   those who are willing to pay the fee.

   When the number of users is reduced, the potential for traffic analysis
   is increased, which reduces the value of the remailer.

   If the value of the remailer is reduced, it will not be worth the cost
   to many users, and those users will seek a less expensive, higher
   traffic remailer.

   Thus, the commercial remailer is forced to lower its prices until it is
   unprofitable.

Conclusion: Pay-per-message commecial remailers are not economically viable.


Hence we need a new economic model to finance remailers.
Several have been proposed:

 - Advertiser supported

 - Pay a flat fee per month for remailer access

 - Everyone a remailer.  Remailers only accept messages from other
   remailers.  To use remailers you must run a remailer.

 - Get companies to run remailers on their firewalls to reduce traffic
   analysis by competitors/spies

 - Pay for access to an anonymous message pool

 - Sell a spam filtering service to fund remailers

 - Sell a spamming service to fund remailers

 - Sell cpu cycles in exchange for remailer access

 - Charge people for extra services, such as low-latency

 - Pay for a nym account, nymserver subsidizes remailers

 - Have the money launderers subsidize the remailers

 - Somehow get all those Mac users to pay

 - Offer $50 to the first person to set up a remailer, as Monty Cantsin did

 - Fund social programs for universal remailer access and universal health
   care like Cynthia wants