RE: [PLUG] [OT] Postage on EMail?

[jazzman@exdomain.org]

Hi all,

Just thought I'd throw my 2 cents into the ring on this. It seems to me 
that the difference between the email systems of the world and the post 
offices of the world is that the post offices need REAL PHYSICAL methods 
of delivering the mail, so some kind of fee/tax is necessary to make that 
possible. In an electronic world, there is no such resource demand. All 
that's needed are at least two machines and some way to connect them 
(copper, fibre, ether for wireless, IP by carrier pigeon even!).

Now, given this, here is the problem I see with the email postage issue. 
If Bill Gates and others decide they're going to enforce this and everyone 
starts to adopt this, what's to keep me or you or someone else from 
sitting down at a computer (a linux computer of course!) and writing a NEW 
mailing protocol/application and just using that instead. Then in a short 
while people will see there are still FREE alternatives out there and 
guess which one people will start using. Once it catches on a bit more 
some of the more popular email programs will end up incorporating support 
for it, and suddenly the postage based email (smtp) isn't being used 
because a new one is out there that's FREE.

Now I suppose someone could start taxing that as well, but then the cycle 
just continues. With a digital world it becomes impossible to FORCE 
someone to use a single tool EXCLUSIVELY. There will always be people to 
reverse engineer and/or develop around anything they see as prohibitive.

Maybe i'm looking at it through rose colored glasses, but it seems like 
the most likely scenario is that when the taxes start getting charged an 
alternative method is found. If it's legal AND free it's going to be 
easier to accept than legal and COSTLY, so long as it's as easy as the 
previous tool.

Thoughts?
Marc

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