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The benefits of advertising
In regard to advertising, it does serve a useful function although I can
understand the reasons for not wanting to be inundated with advertising
material. Maybe the solution will be for some commercial organization
to start a list somewhat like this one that will charge for advertising
and then those who are bothered by it can remain on the one without
advertising. I know that the Internet has a long tradition of excluding
advertising and in fact not only that but of providing many products
such as software, free of charge. It is curious to me that the profit
motive is so distrusted by the Internet tradition. I think that it is
partly an ideological stance based on the background and work
environment of most of the original users. But the use of the Internet
is going far beyond the original users and I would be willing to bet
that within 3 years, advertising here will be widely accepted. Is it
really any different from going to your postal mail box and sifting
through several items of advertising each day? Everyone does that and
there is no great harm from it. I don't see any move in Congress to ban
junk mail in the U.S. Postal system. Of course I recognize that the
list manager can do what he or she wants and that it will be most likely
what the majority wishes. Nevertheless, your junk mail may be my
valuable information. I intend to buy the CD Rom because it provides a
convenience that I can really use and when I saw that "advertisement", I
thought about how I had just recently joined this list and immediately
had found something useful on it. Also, I think that advertising here
is a different situation from that of the U.S. Postal Service because
the specialized nature of the list makes it more likely that items will
be of interest to the list readers. But even if advertising becomes the
norm on the Internet, I prefer it be as modest and short as possible.
Robert Holloway