[572] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
ANS as Robin Hood and non-profit status
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (alison@osc.edu)
Tue Apr 9 14:07:09 1991
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 91 14:04:45 -0400
From: alison@osc.edu
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From: alison@osc.edu
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To: alison@osc.edu, schoff@psi.com
Subject: Re: ANS as Robin Hood
Cc: com-priv@osc.edu
I still think the issues of how to charge and what to use the money for
are separate issues. I can accept that ANS is accountable for the latter;
I can only accept with difficulty that they are accountable for the former,
but I suppose if they were challenged on this issue they might have to
explain why they did what they did.
In any case, there seem to be two separable issues: should charging be
by the packet, and what they choose to do with their revenue over and
above their immediate expenses.
In the case of the latter, "playing Robin Hood" to build national network
infrastructure seems to me to be eminently defensible in the context of
their non-profit charter. In fact, it appear to be explicitly written
into that charter (I'm guessing - I said "appears" if you ignore the typo)
and certainly seems in the public spirit. We could probably argue about
this, but I'm just saying that if they are called upon to justify this
formally, I think they can.
The little bit of experience I have had with financial types, legislators,
and other kinds of people who might be called upon to formally hold ANS
accountable lead me to believe that is far more likely that they would
be asked to account for why they are NOT charging "by the packet" than
that they would be called to account for doing so. There is still very
deep mystification outside the Internet community about why we don't
have usage-based charging and clearly in the view of the layman we should
have. In the context of building infrastructure, one could make a case
that useage-based charging can come too early, destroying the market,
and that is a real danger. However, I think rather than jumping to
conclusions, one will have to look at the charging algorithm that ANS
comes up with and see to what extent it is based on counting bytes and/or
packets and to what extent it is based on other things. Dare I suggest
that some compromise between the current flat rate and the totally
usage-based charges would be acceptable? No, I don't dare.... oh, well...
How DID I get to be an apologist on this mailing list for ANS?? They
just seem like the underdog (at least in this forum) and the background
of the people in ANS makes it hard to them to get in there and swing in
a forum like this. In IBM you learn to be very very careful about what
you say, when you say it, and who you say it to. ANS may not need to be
so very careful, but old habits die hard.
