From: Steve Schear <azur@netcom.com>
Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 08:33:18 +0800
To: "Robert A. Costner" <pooh@efga.org>
Subject: Re: Remailers and ecash
In-Reply-To: <d9ad723431a59140b039a71c9cecc923@anon.efga.org>
Message-ID: <v03102801b053396e2d7b@[10.0.2.15]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>The answer to your question may be to first recast your questions and ask
>why would someone want to attach ecash?  I assume you are trying to "pay"
>for the email you send.  This goes against the general model of the
>internet.  Unlike the phone company, the net peers freely with no
>interconnection charges, so inter lata charges do not have to be tracked
>and collected.  This allows for a flat rate pricing scheme.  For remailers,
>this flat rate is generally zero dollars, i.e. free.

You get what you pay for.

>
>There are remailers of various types who offer services for a charge of
>some sort.  This is generally a flat rate fee, either per month, or per
>year.  There is likely no desire to price on a per item basis.  If there
>were, I would think it would be in the millicent range of pricing.

When remail use is casual and protects rather innocuous content then little
if any can be charged.  When content and identity protection is important
to the sender than a larger, but probably still small amount is fair.  I
would be willing to spend a few cents for each hop from reliable remailers.

>
>If I were to set up a for pay remailing system, I would prefer to have a
>per month, or per year fee.  This is more for the nym model of remailer.  I
>assume you mean the Type-I such as you are using now.  It would be
>interesting to setup as a test, but I don't see there would be any market
>for it.

In business, one can never tell if there's a market until the product or
service reaches sufficient audience.  Some of the most successful products
(e.g., Sony's Walkman and the Internet) were roundly rejected by industry
pundits and marketeers prior to introduction.

--Steve