[953] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Privitization is the issue today
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Roy Smith)
Fri Jul 12 09:08:20 1991
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 91 09:22:30 EDT
From: Roy Smith <roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu>
To: edtjda@magic322.chron.com, lear@turbo.bio.net
Cc: com-priv@uu.psi.com
May I suggest (even though I will probably be in the minority on
this one) that Joe's article, while inflamitory and sensational (in the
sense of sensationalism) and one-sided, is probably not unreasonable.
True, he blurs the distinction between the Internet and Usenet, but perhaps
that is because the distinction is blurry indeed. Is it reasonable to
expect somebody to differentiate between the Book of the Month Club and the
Postal Service, if that person has never experienced either before, or
anything like them? Or between The Phone Company and dial-a-porn? In all
cases, one is just the vehicle for transporting the other, yet the vehicle
is the visible object.
And, if alt.sex constantly hits the top of the arbitron listings
for readership (and if alt.sex.pictures is the single largest volume group
by far), is it that unreasonable to assume that pornography is a
significant, even major, part of of Usenet?
