[11504] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
What's an ISP again...?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barry Shein)
Mon Apr 4 21:06:35 1994
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 1994 15:38:31 -0400
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
To: tenney@netcom.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Glenn S. Tenney's message of Mon, 4 Apr 1994 00:52:02 -0800 <199404040752.AAA05264@netcom9.netcom.com>
>From: tenney@netcom.com (Glenn S. Tenney)
>It's clear that for all of these we can agree that $10K is a HUGE
>investment. What's not clear is why they should have to be considered an
>ISP. Especially in the first two cases, I believe that this whole needing
>to be a CIX member actually working AGAINST the Internet spreading into
>developing countries?
Glenn,
Charitable efforts are a wonderful thing and I believe it's safe to
say that most all of us are involved in them in one way or another.
Charitable efforts need to be funded, there is no doubt about that,
it's tautological with their mission.
However, it does not follow that they make for good examples regarding
pricing structures. No doubt the same sort of reasoning you point out
would be just as applicable to their office rent, staff salaries,
travel, virtually any expense they may need to incur.
Certainly as charitable efforts they deserve special consideration.
Perhaps a discount or even freebie from a supplier is appropriate as
you seem to be suggesting, or perhaps a benefactor to pick up some of
these inevitable costs is the best route, or perhaps the public should
be presented with the expenses you describe and solicited for funding,
or some other potential funding source.
But in general although it is certainly nice when a charitable
organization can completely avoid some expense it's not really much of
an argument that the expense hasn't a right to exist, be it rent,
salaries or services they need, simply based on the reasoning that the
charity would be better able to accomplish their mission if everything
were free.
-Barry Shein
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