Message-ID: <19981206225108.AAA27744@LOCALNAME> Date: Sun, 6 Dec 1998 18:48:48 -0400 From: Kerry Miller <mailto:kerryo@NS.SYMPATICO.CA> Subject: Re: Tobin/net tax To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Bob, > You're correct, the "game" is not getting something for nothing, and never
> was. The "business" is fostering communications at the lowest cost for
> all, period, nothing else.
>
I disagree, vigourously. The serious business is to make communications *count for something. The evidence on the Net (not just this list!) to date is pretty meagre, and it's not rocket economics to infer a connection between message content and the conceptual investment behind it.> > Specifically, that no one is exclusively a 'receiver' (aka consumer).
>
> The little man behind the screen is at it again. Notice how cleverly the
> concept of message receiver is twisted into a general consumer concept.
>
Please enlighten me: how does being a message recipient differ from being a message consumer?> I contribute more than pennies. I do it indirectly by paying taxes that
> go for lots projects I don't support and don't believe various levels of
> government should be in. I do it by supporting charities who do mostly
> projects I support. I do it directly by doing health, education and
> renewable energy projects to meet the needs of various users overseas.
>
No one has suggested that you stop; I'm only extrapolating the 'devolutionist' tendency towards paying only for what ou get. Government -- that is, the collector and distributor of indirect tax -- in this view, is a dinosaur. The Net itself has been shelled out already; do you imagine that ideas of how to make e-mail *pay* are not circulating among the ICANN powers-that-be? A cent/K is not only possible, but, imo, highly likely -- but if we put uur collective minds to it, we might have at least a counter proposal as to where the money goes and what it does.> > If we can do that, we can pay for email:
>
> You're implying "we" approve of over charging.
>
Who said *over* charge, hmmm? (Now who's misdirecting?) ... > From implying we all volunteer to over charing for telephone service, to
> the same overcharge being OK for the internet, then changing to a minimum
> use payment from a per unit charge, to admitting it's an overcharge by
> implying "even I" don't use more than 80K/day, to counting only text so
> rich folks with fast and fancy computers can have their graphics without
> extra tax, even though they could afford it more easily.
>
Slow down a kilohertz or two: your straw men are getting too flimsy to count. a) In terms of outgoing mail, I guess very few individual subscribers send more than 80K/ day, graphics included. Webbed business is another matter. b) One of the first cracks in the old familiar definitional walls between phone/ data/ TV/ radio/ cable service was digital pix. (This came with the 'opening up' of the Net to AOL and Compuserve, and their GUI interfaces, as well as, of course, the move from text-based gopher to image-intense WWW.) There is no way to distinguish *content*, and therefore the tax proposal can not possible be construed as letting 'rich folks have their graphics.' c) Rather than being tolerant of overcharging, consider that North Americans have come to accept that $25 is 'just about right' for local service and thus have ceased to be concerned. The idea of paying the same for LD or for net connection is still a novelty, so we're more aware of it, and have less precedent on which to base a value judgement. Therefore the 'Tobinette' tax has more chance of being accepted at this phase than later on.> Invest in a renewable energy system now. That will be a contribution to
> the LDC's. Volume production will make costs go down for everyone. (I
> got my plug in too, nana nana na na)
>
Take a deep breath, Bob, no one is arguing. (This aint Usenet!) RE is a good thing, and the economy of scale is entirely relevant. But I don't see how it moves you from being a 'receiver' to being a supplier.
> If this post causes one person to take a critical, rather than emotional
> look at one project proposal and rational, it will be worth all the nasty
> grams (tax free so far) that I will get. Please send them directly to me,
> not to the group, who are probably sick and tired of it all.
>
It's hard to believe, isn't it? Over a thousand people read this mail, and we are reduced to hoping that *one will give it some thought. (Btw, if you could extract the subject line from the Digest, it'd help those who read this list solely via the archives. If it comes to that, has anyone thanked WU for their kind service, recently?)kerry