Stephen Downes

Let me be clear, so there is no doubt. If AOL's system were widely adopted, it would start costing me hundreds of dollars a month to provide this newsletter. AOL's statement that "only legitimate senders of mass e-mail are likely to pony up the fee" is a crock - only commercial mass emailers will do so (and they, of course, won't be slowed at all). So if AOL launches this program, please note that AOL will be subject to a complete and total boycott from this site: all email from AOL accounts in and out will be refused, all web accesses (including RSS) will be blocked. I encourage all other sites and services to take similar measures; AOL cannot be allowed to block all but commercial communication on the internet.