I agree. I doubt that anyone could get away with/ make a profit from, charging for every page downloaded, what about the front page for example? Would you go to a site where you had to pay just to discover if it had any content worth reading? Especially if it could create a huge number of pop up windows to send your bill through the roof and create distrust for all new websites?
I also think the penny a page is rather expensive, it only costs 2p a MB for transfers over the atlantic link so a 100k page should only be about at 1/10th of a penny in transport costs which you've already paid most of with your ISP.
I agree the subscription model looks the best idea, possibly with lite, regular and heavy user rates e.g. 10/100/unlimited articles each month. This would solve both parties problems in having a worthwhile revenue stream and limiting costs. `I think its getting to the stage where the old timers have sites that they would be prepared to pay for the content from and allow providers to invest in improving links etc. My personal votes go for BBC News, Dilbert &/.
This is a real story from a lab I used to work at. We were working on a project with a major US group. We were trying to attach little bubbles of glass onto the end of hair thin glass tubes for a laser experiment. We were told the american lab would have no problem with this and that they had 10 techies and a $110 million lab so would get it done in no time.
Six months later and no sucess we gave the project to a summer intern to look at while we found him some real work without much hope of sucess. We can back to take him for lunch to discover him with the newspaper out, the problem solved and complaining of being bored. In this instance the Director of the site took great pleasure in giving him full credit 8)
Moral of the story - brains usually win and any student with one good idea is likely to have more they will get credit for
How did he solve it? Attached a vaccuum to the end of the glass strand and sucked the ball onto it and sealed off the other end with superglue.
From experience with government departments its often a case of being sent to different departments, organisations, local, regional national government etc. and everytime it's always just for basic stuff. What I mean is the systems are usually there for historical reasons and get built on rather than redesigned which suggests a large amount of wasted effort.
Why do we have to go in, collect a form, find the other forms needed, queue up and submit them and then wait for information to come back? It would be easier to do it all online and far less boring for the workers. Imagine, no driving to the office, no queueing, no wasted time and the whole system automated. I could even do it in my lunch break from my desktop rather than giving up several hours of my time.
I don't disagree about face to face sometimes being necessary (i.e. in complex cases) but it should be restricted to that. People get bored if they have to do the same thing again and again for years, make their lives interesting and it benefits everyone. Freedom through Technology!
Now of course all we need is secure digital identification which everyone has and is acceptable to their government, widespread access to the Web/on-line services and a forward looking government.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree. I doubt that anyone could get away with/ make a profit from, charging for every page downloaded, what about the front page for example? Would you go to a site where you had to pay just to discover if it had any content worth reading? Especially if it could create a huge number of pop up windows to send your bill through the roof and create distrust for all new websites?
/.
I also think the penny a page is rather expensive, it only costs 2p a MB for transfers over the atlantic link so a 100k page should only be about at 1/10th of a penny in transport costs which you've already paid most of with your ISP.
I agree the subscription model looks the best idea, possibly with lite, regular and heavy user rates e.g. 10/100/unlimited articles each month. This would solve both parties problems in having a worthwhile revenue stream and limiting costs. `I think its getting to the stage where the old timers have sites that they would be prepared to pay for the content from and allow providers to invest in improving links etc. My personal votes go for BBC News, Dilbert &
This is a real story from a lab I used to work at. We were working on a project with a major US group. We were trying to attach little bubbles of glass onto the end of hair thin glass tubes for a laser experiment. We were told the american lab would have no problem with this and that they had 10 techies and a $110 million lab so would get it done in no time.
Six months later and no sucess we gave the project to a summer intern to look at while we found him some real work without much hope of sucess. We can back to take him for lunch to discover him with the newspaper out, the problem solved and complaining of being bored. In this instance the Director of the site took great pleasure in giving him full credit 8)
Moral of the story - brains usually win and any student with one good idea is likely to have more they will get credit for
How did he solve it? Attached a vaccuum to the end of the glass strand and sucked the ball onto it and sealed off the other end with superglue.
From experience with government departments its often a case of being sent to different departments, organisations, local, regional national government etc. and everytime it's always just for basic stuff. What I mean is the systems are usually there for historical reasons and get built on rather than redesigned which suggests a large amount of wasted effort.
Why do we have to go in, collect a form, find the other forms needed, queue up and submit them and then wait for information to come back? It would be easier to do it all online and far less boring for the workers. Imagine, no driving to the office, no queueing, no wasted time and the whole system automated. I could even do it in my lunch break from my desktop rather than giving up several hours of my time.
I don't disagree about face to face sometimes being necessary (i.e. in complex cases) but it should be restricted to that. People get bored if they have to do the same thing again and again for years, make their lives interesting and it benefits everyone. Freedom through Technology!
Now of course all we need is secure digital identification which everyone has and is acceptable to their government, widespread access to the Web/on-line services and a forward looking government.