Well.... I suppose my images are not up to much but why should I give them away free? The web is just another way of publishing and it cost me money to put them there.... Those famous? (well I'd not heard of them) photographers can afford to give away small unprintable images. Whereas they can ask $1000 for a print that costs 50 cents to make and sell hundreds, I can ask $10 and not sell any. Why not show my images to a wider audience and ask $3 for a larger image? The web was designed with free interchange of information as its basis, payment per page should have been designed in to it, where the average bloke like me could put up an average web page and charge a cent to view it. The charge being levied through my ISP as a low priced service. In this way having a web page becomes economic, otherwise it is only for publicity or Kudos. Web pages are not much good for publicity as few people come by chance, if you have a chargeable page then it makes sense to advertise and sell your page or in my case a sub page with more detail. This is the way the web will go as commercial forces dictate, a special type of packet (the atoms of information on the internet) that can have a fee associated so that an ISP sending one to a client will charge him then take its cut and pass back the fee to the originating ISP via all the relays, each one charging a micro fee until it reaches the vendor who is then paid via his ISP charging system. This could be done so that only the chargeable portions of the page had this number in the packet. Since there are millions of packets, each packet need only have a thousandth of a cent charge. The technology would require an extra layer on the protocol to handle the charge and this would be handled by money men. In this way the Internet will become turbo-charged and be even more successful than now with Internet vendors actually making money. This suggestion has a value. I put it at 1 Cent. All those who value my suggestion send me a cent (you can use pay-pal). The above 3 sentences are meant as a joke!!! Chris mailto:nimbo@ukonline.co.uk http://www.chrissdomain.com -----Original Message----- From: owner-photoforum@listserver.isc.rit.edu [mailto:owner-photoforum@listserver.isc.rit.edu]On Behalf Of Jeff Spirer Sent: 28 January 2003 17:38 To: List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students Subject: RE: my re-vamped web site At 04:19 PM 1/28/2003 +0000, Chris wrote: >In reply > >I would charge 1 to 10 cents for the view of images but the technology gets >in the way. The system uses credit card payments so is limited to over two >dollars for each transaction so to be effective $3 is about the minimum fee. > >I'm hoping for micro payments technology to be invented so I can use that. Micro-payments or not...I can go on the web and see photographs by great photographers like Clarence John Laughlin, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, William Eggleston, Robert Earnest, Cristina Garcia Rodero, Seydou Keita (just noticed this the other day - http://www.zonezero.com/exposiciones/fotografos/keita/default.html - worth a look), Robert Earnest, Ralph Gibson, Diane Arbus, Weege, and Robert Earnest. All of this is for free. The question I have (and I think this has been asked before) is why would I pay to see your photos when I can see all this for free? It's different for a print or a book, but to look on the web? Jeff Spirer Photos: http://www.spirer.com
