yep its more complicated than my simple statement makes it out =) i guess the core of the statement was that the net cost to the db is more tied to offset than

yep its more complicated than my simple statement makes it out =) i guess the core of the statement was that the net cost to the db is more tied to offset than select, yes they interact and 'select * with offset' is more expensive than 'select foo with offset', but its really the offset that is the problem. If you did keyset style pagination and still did 'select *' you'd be fine and roughly the same cost as 'select foo'.