[Boatanchors] Boatanchors list

[Robert Nickels]

> Hams are cheap, and a subscription QTH list would likely shrink the
> subscription list to a small fraction of the critical mass required to
> sustain any mailing list.

I'll agree with the first statement John, and I'll acknowledge your
perspective as I know you were there when the BA list started.   But that
was a long time ago, when to be honest a lot of us were mooching a little
BAndwidth from our bosses (or maybe dialing up once a day?) - this was
certainly before the PC was as ubiquitous a tool as it has become today.
There were a couple more ham magazines in publication then plud a lot of
paper newsletters that competed for the ham radio information dollars as
well.   And even after Jack went to a $20 annual subscription fee, it was
(is) still a great place for expert opinion and advice.  Some of OT
discussions, administration policies,  and subsequent hard feelings have
also taken their toll on the QTH lists.  Do you own mental signal-to-noise
comparison.

While there are other places to go like Yahoo or the other megasites, we all
know there's a price to pay for their "free" services.   In my view, Al is
just delaying the inevitable.  Set a modest annual fee for list membership
and another one for hosting services, and utilize one of the many "e-store"
payment processing software packages to make it as easy to adminster as
possible.    If there's a demand (and there IS), people will pay - just look
at eBay's success as an example.   Seems to me that a below-market rate for
hosting personal websites would probably pay for all the mail reflectors.
If Al doesn't personally want to mess with it, maybe he should look at
('scuse my language) "outsourcing" the job.

73, Bob W9RAN