On Fri, 25 Oct 1996, Matt Ranney wrote:
to step forward at this point -- more Web traffic flows from the UK to the US. That is, there is a small net flow of _benefit_ to the US and a very large net imbalance in _costs_ to the UK.
Obviously the costs are different, but how exactly are you measuring "benefit"? What if there are just more net-savvy folks the UK that want to run Web sites, resulting in a higher ratio of servers to browsers than in the US? Don't those people that put up Web servers then want people in the US to see them?
To my way of thinking, content providers are net producers of 'benefit' and say dial-up users are consumers. We adjust our prices to reflect this: if you buy a leased line from us to run a Web server, we charge you less; if you are a dial-up provider, we charge you more. Most end users would agree with this model. They pay their 10 quid / 15 bucks a month so that they can surf the Web. They don't expect the Net to pay them ;-) -- Jim Dixon VBCnet GB Ltd +44 117 929 1316 fax +44 117 927 2015 http://www.uk.vbc.net VBCnet West +1 408 971 2682 fax +1 408 971 2684