Re: [ALSC-Forum] A query

[Kent Crispin]

On Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 09:59:44PM -0700, Bruce Young wrote:
> 
> Many of us in this forum find this behavior
> unacceptable (to say the least!), and have so far been frustrated in our
> attempts to get the press to recognize this as an issue of Internet users'
> attempt to exercise their self-determination rights over a public resource

You express a very common misconception.  The Internet is not a public
resource; it is instead a mixed collection of resources, some public but
mostly private.  The vast bulk of the Internet traffic in the US is
carried over fiber and wire that is privately owned, switched by routers
and other equipment that is privately owned, and carrying information
from computers that are privately owned.  The various backbone providers
carry your traffic because you pay for it, one way or another, not
because you have a "right" to the Internet. 

> that we all will increasingly rely on in the future for communication,
> education, entertainment and commerce (and many of us funded the creation of
> with our tax dollars!);

The public funding for the current Internet is a minuscule amount,
compared to the private funding. 

> versus powerful corporate interests trying to wrest
> total control of it in the name of profit.

"Powerful corporate interests" are precisely the entities that paid for 
the current Internet, and they paid for it precisely because they 
wanted to make a profit.  Without those "powerful corporate interests" 
the Internet as we know it would not exist.

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Be good, and you will be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain