Date: Sun, 20 Apr 1997 13:37:31 -0600 From: Blaine Minazzi <bminazzi@denverweb.net> To: Gary Palmer <gpalmer@freebsd.org> Cc: Eddie Fry <eddie@eaznet.com>, isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: News... Message-ID: <335A707B.10588A66@denverweb.net> References: <14848.861561263@orion.webspan.net>
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Gary Palmer wrote: > > Sorry, you lose. I know from experience :-( Customers have left > webspan (the ISP I currently work for) because I had troubles with > hard drive reliability in the early days and they went elsewhere to > get their porn. And they were porn suckers, believe me. ALL the people > who phoned to complain about the server being down, when cornered by > tech. support, admitted that they were after a.b.p.e, even one who > started out saying ``When is the news server gonna be back, my > business depends on it!''. He never posted a thing, he just read. > So, what percentage of customers did you loose? And, of those that left, how many went elsewhere because they couldn't get their rocks off, and how many left because they simply wanted a more reliable ISP? Doing some user logging, info gathering, just to get some numbers should not be all the difficult. Would be good to see what percentage of a typical ISP's news customers are spending what percentage of their time on the which groups. Then, you can assign a dollar value to it, and weigh that against the cost of defending yourself from prosecution, etc.You could also mesure the total bandwidth that those customers use, and weigh that against the other users. Of course a certain percentage of your business is going to be made up of people who want the porn. They have a dollar value. ( asset. ) Providing those newsgroups has a certain risk. ( liability. ) Also, don't forget the bandwidth and equipment cost increases. If all you are concerned about is PURE PROFIT, why not just deal drugs? Both Illegal porn and drugs can get you a room with striped sunlite, if you get caught. Most of the ISP's that have the alt.sex.teen.binaries type of groups on their servers ARE commiting a felony. They just have not been caught and prosecuted yet. One could cater to that segment of society, if they choose, and show a good profit, but with a considerable increase in risk of prosecution. Some of us choose to not be purveyors of those types of materials. In return, I get quite a few comments from people who appreciate the fact that I do not host any "adult" sites, and that was the reason they chose me as their provider. I know that I have had far more compliments on my desision to not host those sites than people who wrote and complained about the policy. I imagine that is becuase the others just go elsewhere quietly... So, both sides have positives and negatives. Me: I sleep well at night, and I don't have to worry about the police, or the neighbors thinking I am some sort of smut shop operator.
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