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I guess you didn't fully read my last post. It wasn't for one game developer specifically, it was for an entire service.

I did read it, but yes, I'm clearly not understanding exactly what your site was. Hopefully that doesn't matter too much to the discussion.

I don't think you have any authority to comment on the value it gave.

I think it's important to note that I'm not really trying to. Yes, I do think that what your site did was kind of wasteful (assuming I understand what it did), but it isn't my opinion that matters, it's the opinion of your site's users that matters. So what I'm really trying to say is that, in terms of their willingness to donate to keep the site alive, apparently they did not believe it to be worth the expense.

For example, I might decide to build an outdoor ice skating rink in the desert, and allow people to use it for free. Then after some time, I become unable to afford the upkeep myself, and so I ask for people to help out, at a cost of $80 per visitor per day, since it is in the desert and keeping that ice frozen in that location is insanely expensive. In that situation, I'd expect most people to decide that, while they love the ice skating rink, and using it brings them a lot of happiness, it just isn't a cost-effective means of entertainment. Meanwhile, if I did the same thing in a colder location with a higher humidity level, it might cost only $8 per visitor per day, and in that case many of the visitors would happy just pay the $8, since it does bring people $8 worth of happiness, it just doesn't bring people $80 of happiness. So perhaps, in the desert, I need to find some way to either increase the value of the experience, or decrease the expense of it. For example, if I built a dome over the rink, trapping all of the humidity inside, that would likely reduce the evaporation rate, and reduce the cost. If that wasn't enough, I might also open the rink only at night, keeping it covered with insulation during the day, which is certainly non-ideal, but it does enable people in the hot desert climate to continue to enjoy an ice-skating rink from time to time for an affordable price.

What I'm saying is that I think your web site was in that sort of situation. I'm not saying that it was worthless, I'm just saying that I don't think its worth was in proportion to its cost, and that's why you weren't able to raise sufficient donations. So I think it would have made sense to look into ways to provide a similar value at a lower cost, e.g. asking users to not hot-link the images from literally everywhere but instead just from key locations like their MySpace page or personal web site where the probability that anyone seeing the images is interested in the information they contain is highest, so that you can continue to provide most of the value you provided before but at much less than most of the cost.

Obviously I don't know your situation and so I can only speculate as to what might have helped, but my point is that your situation seems unusual to me. I think most of the discussion for this story isn't about such unique circumstances, but rather it's about much more typical web sites like my own, the type which I think I can quite easily argue aren't harmed in any way that anyone should care about by the use of ad blocking software.

Take a look at this web page. When the Anonymous Coward asked "would you pay money to use any of the 'free' websites you currently use?" it was this particular web page that I had in mind when I replied "no, and even so, the web sites I really care about would continue to exist."

About a year ago I needed to find that information again, having successfully used it the first time I found it, and having a bottle of the enchant saved from that time but no memory of how to properly test its acidity and adjust it. So I went looking, and only encountered search results

Technically speaking that is, not politically.

I remember reading about this on one of my ISPs' blog a while ago.

http://steve.blogs.exetel.com.au/index.php?/archives/186-Content-Filtering.html

Try Exetel Australia: static IP, servers welcome, addons include: reasonable excess traffic fees, VOIP DIDs, SMS API, bidirectional Fax/Email gateway, hosting and more...

I also remember them being profit-limited (perhaps by charter?), but I am not sure of that last bit.

http://exetel.com.au/

An Australian option is TPG. $1/mo and just pay for what you use. SMS isn't too bad at 10c/each, but data is a bit on the pricey side.

Exetel has some reasonably cheap monthly pre-paid packages http://www.exetel.com.au/residential-mobile-cap-plans.php#super_plans

Kogan prepaid sits atop Telstra's network (best 3G speeds/coverage) and is excellent value http://www.kogan.com/au/mobile.

Most carriers offer a pre-paid option that expires monthly and included some number of "free" SMS. You can even get unlimited SMS on some. If you don't buy a pre-paid package with a bundled phone there is no commitment term. If you take a phone they usually hit you up for some number of recharges before they'll give you the unlock codes. Go SIM-only to avoid that.

NBNCo wholesale charges will be the biggest single cost to RSPs. RSPs will have no alternative but to pay. NBNCo have in their wisdom chosen to charge a sliding scale for speed (AVC) and for data (CVC). The effect of this is that we are going to have fibre capable of 1Gbps to which half the country connect at 12/1Mbps (NBNCo Corporate Plan). I can appreciate the need to charge for data, because that is what places the load on the network, but if you are restricting consumption through data there is no need to restrict speed.

Woz is wise in moving to Australia, because the rich will have their fast 1Gbps connections (at least $250/month) subsidised by the poor with their 12/1Mbps connections ($50/month). If it wasn't a national roll out, then it would be too expensive to roll out just for those prepared to pay for a 100Mbps or faster connection. A similar situation exists with electricity infrastructure where transmission lines have been upgraded to support MacMansions with multiple air-conditioners. The cost of the infrastructure upgrades are then shared across the network, including those too poor to pay the running expenses for an air-con.

Wait, wait, what?

Firstly, big electricity consumers get big electricity usage bills. They pay more money so the company can perform the infrastructure work to support them. At least, that's how it works where I live. We don't pay for a connection to the power grid and then electricity is free.

Secondly, it's a false comparison. The NBN isn't an existing network where we're performing upgrades to support heavy users, it's running brand new cabling everywhere for everybody. The single biggest cost in the rollout is digging up and running millions of kilometres of fibre cable. You're looking at a massive cost to get 12M fibre links to all households. Delivering 1000M instead of 12M to a household isn't a big deal, the big expense is the same either way.

I don't know for certain because I haven't seen NBNCo's financials, but I very strongly suspect the $250/month gigabit users are subsidising the 12M users. Exetel offers 12M NBN links for $35/month and that's not going to pay for the line to be run to your house, never mind internet service.

Other than the network capacity issue they are pretty "wink wink nudge nudge" about P2P, and are only doing the bare minimum to appear to be complying with the governments wish to institute network filtering.

Is that a recent change? I was under the impression that Exetel was against it when used for piracy on moral grounds and had no issue with permanently disconnecting repeat offenders. From a brief search on Google I was able to locate an Exetel blog post from a year and a half back that states:

Of course, as far as copyright theft goes, Exetel has taken the hardest stance of any ISP that I know of, and we have done that since we began over four years ago. Not because of any implied threat or stretched interpretation of the Copyright Act. And certainly not because of any direct financial benefit (quite the opposite, from the 'outraged' emails sent from soon to be ex customers). Rather because, actually, it is the right thing to do. We have always made it very clear that thieves are not welcome.

Of course I do realise that P2P is frequently used for legitimate file transfers, but the "wink wink nudge nudge" you wrote seems to imply you believe they are lenient in their dealings with piracy. The blog post would indicate otherwise and outlines the process they take for disconnecting anyone that causes them to receive a copyright infringement notice. A more recent example of their P2P off-peak policy also seems to indicate they aren't very friendly towards P2P in general, regardless of what is being downloaded.

...but the other option is for all traffic to be slow if the links max out due to unrestricted P2P

Of course the real other option would be to provide the bandwidth they advertised for the service and set realistic quotas to keep it in check, like most of the other ISPs in Australia do, rather than giving all plans a flat 60GB bonus during certain hours of the day that they cannot actually provide when many users take advantage of it.

Exetel also conducted a trial of its own in regard to ISP level web filtering technologies. It made participation in this trial mandatory for all of its subscribers, disallowing them the freedom to opt-out. There's some food for thought.

This idiotic plan is not killed and dead. The Labor government in general, and Senator Stephen Conroy in particular, have been taken aback by the strength of the opposition. The article noted in the summary only covers some of the incompetent answers given to hard questioning by the main Opposition party and one of the minority parties.

Trials are still being underway involving 4 tiny ISPs, one medium ISP, one Christadelphian ISP and one large ISP majority owned by Singtel.

There is no engineering, vendor neutral specification giving trial design criteria or testing methodology as the basis for the trials. There is no requirement for the ISPs to disclose which method of censorship they selected. The ISPs have been supported to the tune of $AU300,000 but there is still a $AU887,000 consultancy contract for the testing and reporting of on a system to block up to 10,000 URLs. The IWF annual report lists between 1100-1300 sites blocked by their system. Rumour has it that much of the testing in the small ISPs is using equipment from the same censorware vendor but this is not confirmed as several censorware vendors have been lobbying for the windfalls. Watchdog, using the NetClean system was involved in some separate testing undertaken by another ISP, Exetel. The Exetel trial received a great deal of criticism in the Australian internet community and Exetel customers. The trial has not been cancelled and neither has the testing consultancy.

Any assumption that the scheme will disappear is premature.

A list of 1000s of banned films and publications is still in existence. The censorship regime has become more and more repressive over the last 10 years. Realistically the entire basis of censorship needs serious review. It is managed by more than one government authority under several different pieces of legislation. The proposed censorship of the internet is under the control of the telecommunications authority which is yet another government authority.

You would have to try very hard to find a more incompetent approach to anything to do with IT, networking or civil liberties all in the same package.

Not quite true here in Australia - my ISP - Exetel - lets me run servers on my home plan. The one exception is servers sending spam mail.

My plan provides a fixed IP, ADSL 2+, uncounted uploads, and a reasonable flat rate (AU$3 /GB) for traffic over the limits (8 GB peak, 50 GB offpeak) for AU $46 a month.

Terms of service:
http://www.exetel.com.au/a_acceptable_use_adsl2.php

In their forums Exetel management have said they have no problems with businesses using their residential services, or vice versa - they just have different support policies for each one.

Are you just looking at Telstra's pricing? Those are not realistic prices. Try Whirlpool's Broadband Choice search. I count 11 plans that have more than 16GB for less than $50. That's in Brisbane, but if anything there'd be more choice in Victoria. Then there's plans with large off peak quota that aren't included in the search, like Exetel's 6GB+54GB for $40.

Blackberrys are a huge thing in Australia almost every mobile phone company sells them, heck even some ISPs sell them, if they come here with their patent crap I wouldn't be shocked if it causes their assassintio, as you know Australians arn't so called normal.

I am using pre-wimax tech thanks to unwired (network provider) and exetel (cheapest internet provider for the unwired network) and one of the main features of wimax is NO line of sight... unwired use navini hardware for this...