Jeff writes:

> > But I get better support from groups like this one, and
>  > the annual membership fees can't be beat!
>
>  That's the rub, the basis for all of the commodity discussions
>  and a big problem MPE has suffered from: price, free, value
>  added.  3000-L is not free.  Jeff Kell and UTC run it on servers
>  that are not free, their electric bill still comes in each month,
>  they may do backups, etc. -- none of which are free.  If UTC, for
>  whatever reason, decides to not spend the money for this list, my
>  guess is that someone else will pick it up, but it won't be free
>  for them either.
>
>  Jeff (not understanding why sane people expect good stuff to be
>        free) Vance, CSY

In contrast to the thrust of Jeff's comments, a high price certainly doesn't
guarantee quality, and I would certainly put Interex in that category. To the
contrary, for a great many things, such as HP3000-L, the marginal cost of
creating one more thread on a server, using software that's already been paid
for, is so low that it is essentially negligible, yet the value of the list
is obvious to everyone.

Cost, price and value are sometimes exceedingly difficult qualities to
reconcile in an information economy, but when they're much out of kilter, the
condition is very easy to recognize.

Wirt Atmar

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