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If I discuss ideas between me and another person society does not benefit; only the two benefit. If I subscribe to a magazine and journal, only I benefit. So,
by witty_username 10y ago
If I discuss ideas between me and another person society does not benefit; only the two benefit.
If I subscribe to a magazine and journal, only I benefit.
So, why should the people who don't use mail pay for the people who do use mail?
> but is still the one with the least capability of censorship (yes, it can be done, as Communist and Fascist dictorships did, but it requires massive manual effort).
Why do you think it has the least capability of censorship, especially versus the internet?
- jhbadger 10y agoThe development of science and technology was only possible with scientists and engineers communicating their results via mailed journals, for starters. Everybody benefited from that, not just the scientists and engineers themselves. As for censorship, Internet censorship (as in the "Great Firewall of China") is rather easy to automate (and is getting harder to avoid). Paper censorship (such as in East Germany) required thousands of workers to open and read mail physically in order to check if anything subversive was being discussed. Maybe with modern OCR it could be automated a bit more, but still not as easy as just blocking a website.
- witty_username 10y ago> The development of science and technology was only possible with scientists and engineers communicating their results via mailed journals, for starters. Everybody benefited from that, not just the scientists and engineers themselves. Then you can improve patent protection or other mechanisms for compensating scientists. Subsidizing mail for everybody is inefficient.