4 ms·

Someone from rural China can send me a message within seconds, for free, and I can reply, for free! Yeah, you both "only" need some machine that can go on

by nsns 12y ago

Someone from rural China can send me a message within seconds, for free, and I can reply, for free! Yeah, you both "only" need some machine that can go online, an internet connection, electricity, the required technical knowledge, and to (implicitly) agree to your personal data getting harvested... otherwise it's "free".

scrollaway 12y ago
I am willing to give you £50 in cash for free as long as you come pick it up at my place in Sweden. This offer is only available for you alone and in person. Are you interested? Because I'd really like to know how your pedantic definition of "free" works out for you when it's obvious that things that require infrastructure (such as online communications, or traveling to a different country)... require infrastructure. (TLDR: If you don't find it amazing that with a very small indirect investment we can actually communicate with people anywhere in the world for free, you and I need to have a long chat about being spoiled.)
- meepmorp 12y ago
  Well, you could mail the money. Using the national postal systems that exist in both countries that have established means of transferring mail long distances. Same as the farmer in rural China could send a message to the Google engineer. It costs money, yes, but if you're sending a one off message and it's not time citical, it's not unreasonable to say that sending the message via email is cheaper overall. Edit: which isn't to say that communication via the Internet isn't really cool, just that it's not actually free, nor would it necessarily be cheaper than sending a message via other means, depending on the circumstances.
  - scrollaway 12y ago
    You missed the critical "within seconds" in the original message. Email is near-instantaneous. Are we seriously debating the merits of email over snail-mail on hacker news? I hope this is merely people enjoying being thick and provocative, because the alternative is that there's some massive bubble-blindness going on right now.
    - meepmorp 12y ago
      And I was considering nsns' point about how the costs associated with sending email aren't nonexistent, and how, given a certain set of concerns and constraints, might be higher than other means. I also thought your £50 example was a bit silly. Of course infrastructure costs money. There's means of communicating and delivering things like money that use infrastructure that require a far lower initial investment for a user, and that might be a better deal for that user, circumstances dependent. And not all communications need to be near-instantaneous.
      - scrollaway 12y ago
        > the costs associated with sending email aren't nonexistent > Of course infrastructure costs money. You do realize you're.. well, you're not contradicting yourself, but on the one hand you agree it's obvious and on the other hand you insist it must be pointed out. My example about money was just that. I could use Western Union or a bank transfer. Those things also have non-nonexistent (sic) costs. If you start pointing out everywhere that "Oh but there's this cost you didn't think about!", you won't be done by next week. You know all those libraries that let you check out books for zero cost? Reading those books requires education, which in turn is no free (No matter how much you wish to contradict that statement, the road you've taken requires you to admit to an unending set of cost upon cost which you don't think about in your day to day life). You live in a society which expects you to have access to certain things. In the case you can't, there usually is infrastructure in place to help you out at little to no cost. So again, please, just take this in: You can communicate with people at the other end of the globe. For free. This is not a legal forum and we don't need asterisks everywhere.
angersock 12y ago
Yep. Pretty amazing, isn't it?

by nsns 12y ago

scrollaway 12y ago

I am willing to give you £50 in cash for free as long as you come pick it up at my place in Sweden. This offer is only available for you alone and in person. Are you interested? Because I'd really like to know how your pedantic definition of "free" works out for you when it's obvious that things that require infrastructure (such as online communications, or traveling to a different country)... require infrastructure. (TLDR: If you don't find it amazing that with a very small indirect investment we can actually communicate with people anywhere in the world for free, you and I need to have a long chat about being spoiled.)

meepmorp 12y ago
Well, you could mail the money. Using the national postal systems that exist in both countries that have established means of transferring mail long distances. Same as the farmer in rural China could send a message to the Google engineer. It costs money, yes, but if you're sending a one off message and it's not time citical, it's not unreasonable to say that sending the message via email is cheaper overall. Edit: which isn't to say that communication via the Internet isn't really cool, just that it's not actually free, nor would it necessarily be cheaper than sending a message via other means, depending on the circumstances.
- scrollaway 12y ago
  You missed the critical "within seconds" in the original message. Email is near-instantaneous. Are we seriously debating the merits of email over snail-mail on hacker news? I hope this is merely people enjoying being thick and provocative, because the alternative is that there's some massive bubble-blindness going on right now.
  - meepmorp 12y ago
    And I was considering nsns' point about how the costs associated with sending email aren't nonexistent, and how, given a certain set of concerns and constraints, might be higher than other means. I also thought your £50 example was a bit silly. Of course infrastructure costs money. There's means of communicating and delivering things like money that use infrastructure that require a far lower initial investment for a user, and that might be a better deal for that user, circumstances dependent. And not all communications need to be near-instantaneous.
    - scrollaway 12y ago
      > the costs associated with sending email aren't nonexistent > Of course infrastructure costs money. You do realize you're.. well, you're not contradicting yourself, but on the one hand you agree it's obvious and on the other hand you insist it must be pointed out. My example about money was just that. I could use Western Union or a bank transfer. Those things also have non-nonexistent (sic) costs. If you start pointing out everywhere that "Oh but there's this cost you didn't think about!", you won't be done by next week. You know all those libraries that let you check out books for zero cost? Reading those books requires education, which in turn is no free (No matter how much you wish to contradict that statement, the road you've taken requires you to admit to an unending set of cost upon cost which you don't think about in your day to day life). You live in a society which expects you to have access to certain things. In the case you can't, there usually is infrastructure in place to help you out at little to no cost. So again, please, just take this in: You can communicate with people at the other end of the globe. For free. This is not a legal forum and we don't need asterisks everywhere.

angersock 12y ago

Yep. Pretty amazing, isn't it?