From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 17:34:39 +0800
To: Jim Choate <cypherpunks@ssz.com (Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer)
Subject: Re: Declan pro-cencorship (sorta) (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <199802152303.RAA27009@einstein.ssz.com>
Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.19980220010711.008ae250@popd.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 05:03 PM 2/15/98 -0600, Jim Choate wrote:
>Then you are saying that the only way to send email to yourself, for
>example, is to contact you prior to the transmission and obtain your
>permission to send the traffic?

That's fine - people who take this approach may get less mail
from interesting people as well as getting less mail from spammers.
It's easy to find mail forwarding systems that don't cost much
and will filter out well-known spam, either for free or for a small fee.
Pobox.com offers this, and I think the iname.com systems do also;
I don't know about hotmail and other web-based mailreaders.

>Why should the fact that I have a mailbox on my front porch while you use a
>mailbox (that you pay extra for) at the post office matter to my ability to
>send you a letter in the mail? Should I call you on the phone and ask your
>permission before sending it? Should I not get some mechanism to contact
>you before contacting you using the phone? No ,I assume because local calls
>are flat rate and therefore don't increase your out of pocket expense? Then
>perhaps the problem is you're choice of payment for net connections? Why
>does your choice of personal expense effect my ability to send traffic?

Most of us have flat-rate email, and the important cost is 
our attention span, not the transmission cost.  For other people,
that's not true, and sending them junk mail _is_ ripping them off
financially as well as ripping off their time and concentration.

As far as "how do you know something is bulk mail"?  The sender knows,
and the sender is the one being rude to thousands of receivers
if it is bulk mail.

>If we accept the free-market view then we should expect all net connections
>to be flat rate since this provides the consumer, the final arbiter in
>free-market theory, the most bang for the buck.

This does not apply in countries that still have
Government-granted Monopoly Postal/Telephone/Telegraph companies.
It also doesn't apply in places where the Telephone Company
decides to charge for connect time by the minute rather than
flat rate - even if your internet provider is flat rate,
you may be paying 1-5 cents/minute - mildly annoying on a 
US salary, and much more so on a Polish salary.

And in a free market, you'd expect a mix of options,
since different people have different net connection needs,
financial constraints, and communications costs.
My main ISP offers an 800 number for about 10 cents/minute,
and I sometimes use it when I'm on the road at hotels with
stupider-than-usual telephone systems.

				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF  3C85 B884 0ABE 4639