In addition, the telecomms were generally not interested in the very early Internet (TCP/IP) because they couldn't figure out how to do per-packet metering, and they assumed that was necessary.
All 3 examples show that trying to do fine-grained metering, in ways that cause tremendous overhead, often don't work. It is sometimes better to make something so that it is "too cheap to meter".
superdistribution was superinteresting... but i felt the same as well when reading it... it could only work if everyone agreed at the same time to use the same protocols... and of course legislation... but it was definitely a grand vision and would have been interesting to see the effect on culture and creativity if it had actually panned out
In addition, the telecomms were generally not interested in the very early Internet (TCP/IP) because they couldn't figure out how to do per-packet metering, and they assumed that was necessary.
All 3 examples show that trying to do fine-grained metering, in ways that cause tremendous overhead, often don't work. It is sometimes better to make something so that it is "too cheap to meter".