Owen, When you stretch an analogy this thin, it always falls apart. I was referring to the poison/pollution not the water/air. A drought/vacuum* would not be possible, but would you want the poisoned water/air? This analogy is bad enough without the nits picked out. I actually mixed two posts to create a stream analogy out of an air analogy. I will not go any further and all further follows on to this analogy should be ignored. :) - Brian J. * a lack of air (for a reasonable deffinition of air) would be a vacuum... right?
-----Original Message----- From: Owen DeLong [mailto:owen@delong.com] Sent: Friday, October 28, 2011 12:11 PM To: Brian Johnson Subject: Re: Outgoing SMTP Servers
Nor is the data transiting these networks a commons. The air over my land is a commons. I don't control it. If I pollute it or if I don't, it promptly travels over someone else's land.
If you choose to pollute the air heavily, the value of the air drops for everybody. If you choose to pollute the Net heavily, the value of the Net drops for everybody.
STRIKE 3! Oops got ahead of myself.
I'm attempting to prevent the pollution but I may capture a little good water
(almost nothing) along the way. To say that this is a way of "bad acting" and causes a loss of value to the Internet as a whole is pure folly.
No, it really isn't. Because the good water that you are catching is actually causing a drought downstream.
Owen