home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Path: jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu!not-for-mail
- From: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee)
- Newsgroups: news.admin.net-abuse.misc,comp.sys.amiga.audio
- Subject: Re: Open Response to Richard E Depew
- Date: 16 Feb 1996 15:05:06 -0500
- Organization: Johns Hopkins University CS Dept.
- Message-ID: <4g2o1i$4kk@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu>
- References: <824160406.9068@spence-n.demon.co.uk> <4ftrku$ih5@emerald.tufts.edu> <4g0ihm$sac@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu> <4g13m7$b2n@emerald.tufts.edu>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu
- Cc:
-
- In article <4g13m7$b2n@emerald.tufts.edu>,
- Saul Tannenbaum <stannenb@emerald.tufts.edu> wrote:
- >> Usenet has a huge advantage over any possible competitor for a very simple
- >> reason: it's big, and it's already there. Claiming that I can start another
- >> Usenet if I don't like this one is about equivalent to claiming that if I
- >> don't like Microsoft, I can start another one.
- >And any "competitor" to Usenet has the ability to leverage the infrastructure
- >that's already in place to do Usenet. Hell, you can even use Usenet to
- >find each other and organize yourselves.
-
- Any Usenet-competitor would start with low connectivity and few subscribers.
- Because high connectivity and many subscribers (up to some limit, but a limit
- greater than the starting size of the competitor) make a news system more
- valuable, people would prefer Usenet to the competitor, thus keeping its con-
- nectivity and size low.
-
- >If sufficiently large numbers of sites find that the don't like this
- >Usenet, another one will start.
- >That you think it can't happen just argues that the concensus does favor
- >the status quo.
-
- The _consensus_ doesn't favor the status quo any more than the consensus
- favors Microsoft. Microsoft is big, which automatically gives it an advantage
- (people want new software to work with the software already out there;
- because Microsoft is big, most of the software already out there is by
- Microsoft).
- --
- Ken Arromdee (arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu, karromde@nyx.cs.du.edu;
- http://www.cs.jhu.edu/~arromdee)
-
- "An alien invader has entered our galaxy! It has now entered our universe,
- clearing Saturn... radial velocity KMS minus 8. It is now orbiting directly
- for Earth." --Bad American Dubbing #2 (quoting ???)
-