paul@xtdnet.nl:
Correction, the world *can't* let you be a well functioning exception. People always scream 'no censorship', but there is only that many more mail servers and preprocessing machines you can throw at a $20/month account.
Hmm. "You get what you pay for.", you mean? I can If you mean that if I pay enough money, I can get a DSL (or even leased line) service with fixed IP address, and proper rDNS, that is not filtered by recipient MTAs. Sure. I probably could - theoretically.
the real question is, how much money is it worth it for you. But don't put to blame on us for not adding another rack of mailservers so people like you can get their mail out.
I'm opposed to marketing systems that actively (means it costs them money) put in restrictions in systems to make me pay more to have them remove it again. It's not worth the 5-fold amount that they will charge me, but if I can't use the 'net propersly, it might not be worth connecting to at all, so they'll lose me as customer. One port blocked is not much to quarrel over in practice, but this is a trend. Mail goes first. Web comes next ("we funnel all your web traffic through our cache"). VOIP is around the corner. It's like a phone system where the won't let you call anyone on the phone system. "If you want to call to this part of the world, you will have to call through our listening station, and if you don't want to do that, you can buy our premium service for $200 per minute." Sorry, it doesn't strike me as tempting at all. The cost cannot be motivated in a personal budget - and it becomes a class thing. "We could only afford limited Internet." No, I don't like it. But then again, I'm just the rare exception ...
Correction, the world *can't* let you be a well functioning exception.
randy@psg.com:
not true. it can but many have decided not to.
Well, what Paul's saying (in my understanding) is "the world *can't* let you be a well functioning exception ... *FOR THAT SMALL AMOUNT OF MONEY*, because their ends will not meet (... with enough overlap ;-)". ... which is probably what you mean too. (Correct me if I'm wrong, Paul.) Cheers, /Liman