Re: "Too cheap to meter"

[Rich Graves <llurch@networking.stanford.edu>]

On Fri, 17 May 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:

> At 2:38 AM 5/16/96, Alan Horowitz wrote:
> >Hey, let's build faster and faster fiber-optic networks. Let's create
> >bandwidth so cheap that it won't even pay to meter it.
> 
> "Too cheap to meter"? Wasn't that what nuclear power promised in the 1950s?
> 
> (I'm actually a supporter of nuclear power, for a variety of reasons, so
> this is not meant as just a cheap shot against nuke plants. But this was
> one of the "selling points" of nuclear, later shown to be a falsehood.)

Actually, nuclear power, per se, is damn cheap. It's the collateral
effects (real, i.e., waste disposal and keeping fissile materials secure
from terrorists, and imagined, i.e., overregulation) that are so
expensive.

Just like the net. We could have a virtually free flow of information, but
that's not exactly what the gubmint wants, is it. Not to mention that it's
not exactly what we want, either -- Canter & Siegel are only the tip of
the iceberg of the Tragedy of the Commons we'd see on a truly free
network. 

We don't need the CDA or anything quite that stupid, but I'll drink to
overpriced, arbitrarily restricted net access any day.

-rich