[9584] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
La Plaza demo & a question about cyberspace "real estate"
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (The future Ross Stapleton-Gray)
Wed Jan 12 19:33:23 1994
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 1994 17:32:32 -0700 (MST)
From: The future Ross Stapleton-Gray <STAPLETON@bpa.arizona.edu>
To: com-priv@psi.com
I dropped in on the La Plaza TeleCommunity demo today at the Rayburn
House Office Bldg. in D.C.; it was a nice demonstration of a GUI-based
freenet implementation, and it all looked very nice.
But it got me thinking. Some of the aspects of their implementation
involved advertiser fees, e.g., to "hang" graphic replicas of painints
(sorry, "paintings") that could be purchased, as a sort of virtual
gallery, and traditional classified advertising. The implementors
expect that revenues from those sources will help cover the cost of
running the system.
But...how should existing law cover this new, cyberspace real estate?
I've yet to see a freenet that felt that it was governed by some sort
of regulatory regime, yet should it be a "must carry" sort of medium?
If government provides information free (or actually designs products
to be delivered by the freenet), is that unfair subsidy to what is
effectively a not-for-profit monopoly? (And the problem comes when
that monopoly starts doing things like running classified ads, which
result in a subsequent print erosion for the newspapers.)
The La Plaza demonstration is a wonderful experiment, but is it workable
in the longer term?
Ross
