From: Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 07:28:21 +0800
To: ravage@einstein.ssz.com
Subject: Re: fuck copyright (Re: Advertising Creepiness) (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <199811101343.HAA17689@einstein.ssz.com>
Message-ID: <199811102109.VAA09630@server.eternity.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




Jim Choate writes:
> From: "Frank O'Dwyer" <fod@brd.ie>
> > Jim Choate wrote:
> > > > You can make money from information provision by charging extra for
> > > > up-to-date news, or by charging so little that the cost from the
> > > > original provider is so low that it's not worth anyones time to
> > > > redistribute it,
> > > 
> > > That's true now, why don't we see these effects...
> > 
> > We do. News inherently has a 'sell-by' date. The most obvious example is
> > stock quotes where delayed quotes are provided for free whereas
> > real-time quotes are heavily charged for. 
> 
> Ah, true but I was addressing the last sentence about the cost being so low
> nobody will charge for it.....sounds like the nuclear industry marketing
> speal of the 50's....

One barrier to such an enterprise is the domain name recognition,
people want wired, they type wired.com; what do they type if they want
the lower priced mirrors?

In a sense the banner stripping companies are already doing just this
service: they attempt to provide you (or assist you in obtaining)
banner stripped versions of anything, and they charge you for the
service.  Therefore one might (somewhat weakly) argue that they
deprive wired (and others) of click through revenue and they charge
you thus diverting funds wired et al might otherwise have got.

This illustrates my point about charging little.  If this type of
enterprise suceeds this indicates that some information providers are
charging too much (too many banners, to an distracting and intrusive
extent).

If the banners strippers became popular (eg. distributed with
netscape!), the solution for those employing the banner approach to
charging is to tone down the banners a bit.  I reckon they could do
with toning down -- it is getting ridiculus most of the bandwidth
through my trusty 28.8k modem is bloody banners these days!  (Phone
calls cost per second in the UK, and I am impatient anyway, so would
prefer faster access.)

Adam