Subject: [Asrg] E-postage

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2004 21:04:33 -0500

> ...Now, lets say hypothetically speaking that all ISPs would charge their 
customers extra for lets say more than 1000 emails/day. 

The problem is that the number will shrink, and shrink, and shrink, until you 
are charged for EVERY E-mail.

And, just as the oligopoly reduces the number of independent small local ISPs 
and things are inexorably consolidating in the hands of folks like Comcast and 
SBC and Verizon et al, you're going to have a bunch of big companies which divvy 
up the market between them and without anything like genuine competition.  We're 
seeing the resulting abuse TODAY with unjustified rate hikes based on flimsy 
arguments... where they're jacking up prices just because THEY CAN.  :-(((

> Would it achieve the same effect as e-postage? Why isn't this model working 
today?

A whole lot of reasons.  But a biggie is:

1)  It's far too easy to steal someone else's bandwidth.  If Aunt Gertrude's 
machine gets infected by a zombie spambot, the spammer can use her machine (and 
her postage) to pump out MILLIONS of E-mail messages.

2)  Even if Aunt Gertrude's machine is rate-limited to 1000 E-mails a day (or a 
hundred!) the spammer can STILL infect that many more machines, and still 
bankrupt all of their available individual postage account balances.  :-(

3)  And somebody ($$$$$) is going to have to sort out the resulting mess.  The 
spammers won't be paying THAT bill, either.

Gordon Peterson                  http://personal.terabites.com/
1977-2002  Twenty-fifth anniversary year of Local Area Networking!
Support free and fair US elections!  http://stickers.defend-democracy.org
12/19/98: Partisan Republicans scornfully ignore the voters they "represent".
12/09/00: the date the Republican Party took down democracy in America.

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From: Seth Breidbart <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2004 17:38:26 -0400 (EDT)

> are charged for EVERY E-mail.

At which point I'll declare myself an ISP and send directly.

Actually, that won't happen, because the ISP market is a lot more
competitive than the phone market.

> And, just as the oligopoly reduces the number of independent small
> local ISPs and things are inexorably consolidating in the hands of
> folks like Comcast and SBC and Verizon et al, you're going to have a
> bunch of big companies which divvy up the market between them and
> without anything like genuine competition.

And for a $250/month colo machine (or likely a lot cheaper), I'll
become the email provider of choice for a few thousand people at $1
each, making a huge profit for me, and cutting their email charges
down to $1/month.

>  We're seeing the resulting abuse TODAY with unjustified rate hikes
> based on flimsy arguments... where they're jacking up prices just
> because THEY CAN.  :-(((

In how competitive a market?

Seth