Charging the net....

[Kyle Jones]

Brad Templeton writes:
 > [...]
 > There are enough enemies of the shareware concept on
 > the net who will ignore the law and say, "You sent it to me, I don't have to
 > pay."   It doesn't matter if they are right or wrong, they will do this, and
 > you can't stop them in any convenient way.  As such, they have made shareware
 > a non-feasable distribution method on USENET.     Too bad, because the
 > grass-roots nature of shareware fits well with the grass-roots nature of
 > usenet, except with those who think it is a sin for programmers to charge for
 > their work.

It's not _just_ that the "shareware" authors are charging money
for their work, it's that they are using the existing USENET
transport infrastructure to eliminate much of the distribution,
copying and advertising costs of running a software house and yet
they still want _more_ money.  We all ride the backs of others
when we post to USENET, but enough is enough.