[10873] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Two-way Internet service from Continental Cable?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barney Wolff)
Sun Mar 13 06:06:42 1994
Date: Sun, 13 Mar 94 00:53:35 -0500
From: Barney Wolff <barney@databus.com>
To: <stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com>, barney@databus.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
>Date: Sat, 12 Mar 94 21:48:25 EST
>From: stpeters@bird.crd.ge.com (Dick St.Peters)
>Barney, excuse me, but just when did I ask for a subsidy for anyone?
>Are you urbanites so uptight that I can't even lament the passing of a
>chance for you to escape without getting hassled about it?
Yup :-). You did not of course ask explicitly, but those who insist on
the same charge for access for all customers, regardless of the cost
of servicing those customers, are in effect asking for subsidy of the
high-cost customers by the low-cost customers.
As a lament, I agree with you. It's those who see this as a problem
which must be fixed with my money that trigger intemperate keystroking
on my part, and I apologize for picking your message to sound off on.
>>When cost differences are *real* it is not legitimate to call it tilting
>>the playing field.
>We speak a somewhat different language then. "Tilted playing field" is
>a statement of condition, not one of cause. Rural people see the
>playing field as tilted against them as a condition of where they live,
>not as the result of some evil influence. (Well, ok, there are conspiracy
>nuts in the countryside too.)
May I ask, as a genuine rather than rhetorical question, in what other
arena are the costs of living in the country higher than in the city?
Sure jobs are scarce, but when was the last time an auto manufacturer
opened a plant in a city? Have we in fact seen a revival of the
long-term urbanization trend in recent years, with a gain in per-capita
income in cities and a loss in the country?
>Sigh ... now you've got me behaving like a city dweller ... I'll probably
>even lock the door when I leave the house tomorrow.
I hereby promise never to burgle your house, or at least to send back
what I can't sell.
Barney
Barney Wolff <barney@databus.com>
