And one more thing -- Compu$erv is not accessible from the Internet: one
must already be a paying member/subscriber in order to pay the additional
$15/mo for the ASTC forum... other desireable services are the exclusive
property of AOL, etc -- so now we are really getting expensive, as one
will have to pay for membership in several commercial services in order
to monitor activity in interesting fields.
 
Why does this remind me of the big promotion of 'caller-i.d.' as a phone
service aimed at the general public -- then it turned out that one needed
to purchase an $80 device and pay about $7.00/mo for the service, mmking
it most attractive not to those who wanted to avoid (or deter) the
occasional harassing/obscene phone calls but to retail establishments who
wanted to track incoming messages and obtain phone numbers of
innocent/naive potential customers who happened to phone in.
 
The big commercial services are trying to lock in new subscribers by
'offering' exclusive access to net resources.  They are not doing anyone
a favor.
 
--bayla singer