An apology, and a question (about uucp in Germany)

[Ian G Batten]

In article <292 at lancelot.UUCP> lance at lancelot.UUCP (Lancelot of Caid) writes:
>In article <1550 at stl.stc.co.uk>, dww at stl.stc.co.uk (David Wright) writes:
>< Some posters have suggested that European sites should 'get a
>< Trailblazer and import news directly'.    Well, TB's would help, so
>< via Trailblazer.    Would you pay $10K for news?  Some would, but
>< not many.   
>Ok. So it costs $10K. Let's see. 10,000/20 sites (i figure there are more
>than 20 sites that could all feed each other with ONE site calling the
>US. That comes out to $500/year. That's $41.00/month. That's less than
>my phone bill WITHOUT long distance! I pay 3 times that much now just for
>my phones!  How about 40 sites? That makes it $20.50/month. That's not
>bad!  All it takes is a group of people to work together. That is not
>that hard to do considering how much they would save!
>

Just what is this discussion proving?  The situation of us all
sharing the link and paying a small amount is exactly what happens.
Then people reckon it's evil and rude.  Then people say why don't
we do what we're already doing.

Europe co-operates, because shipping the news over the Atlantic
RELIABLY, with it getting stopped at short notice, is EXPENSIVE.
If you can borrow or steal resources from someone to do it, and they
won't stop it next Wednesday, fine.  But few companies want to get
into that.  I don't quite understand why US companies that shi[
the news over themselves won't distribute it on, but maybe the
American way applies only to those that don't pay their own bills.

ian

-- 
Ian G Batten, BT Fulcrum - igb at fulcrum.bt.co.uk - ...!uunet!ukc!fulcrum!igb