[9608] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Is advertising relevant
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barry Shein)
Fri Jan 14 01:31:10 1994
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 1994 01:30:29 -0500
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
To: barney@databus.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Barney Wolff's message of Fri, 14 Jan 94 01:12:04 -0500 <9401140612.AA15065@uu6.psi.com>
>From: Barney Wolff <barney@databus.com> [responding to me]
>>But even at 5% if I'm selling the right product that can be quite
>>profitable. If it costs around $1/mailing and I send out 100,000 thus
>>$100K sunk and get back 5,000 responses all I need is to net on
>>average $20/response to break even on the mailing, not a huge
>>challenge, many such come-ons will be worth much more than $20/per
>>response.
>
>Isn't the whole point of the fears that unsolicited ads on the Internet
>cost not $1 each, not $0.10 each, but $0.00 each?
A different point, but yes, precisely the problem.
So, the unmetered nature of the net hath a dark side.
>The choices to deal with this seem to be massive flaming, regulation,
>or universal religious scruples that deem it sinful. Which of those is
>least objectionable?
I think there are other choices.
For example, on The World we have a rather high limit for e-mail
beyond which a charge starts kicking in. Ok, it's fairly token, but it
is an example. I think we've only applied it twice in almost five
years (we instantly forgive mere error or thoughtlessness of a benign
sort and many other things), I know one of those people volunteered to
pay it (he needed some big big package on his e-mail-only site RIGHT
NOW, it cost him like $100) but we do retain the right...
Of course, that's more difficult when a site is direct-connected.
Well, perhaps not more difficult, but requires mechanisms that
probably aren't in place.
Remember, someone sells you that net connection, and you enter into a
contract with that someone. So, say some sort of charge for certain
types of e-mail were required as part of a mutual transit agreement
between network providers (e.g. CIX or similar)? That's not well
thought out, but something like that could work.
-Barry Shein
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