This is very true.  However, I keep coming back to the question: as a writer
of email, is my job to communicate, or to save bandwidth?  I submit that
bandwidth is meant to serve my communication needs, rather than the reverse.

Did you hear that the UK is talking about going to a flat rate for local
phone calls?  I expect that the rest of Europe is not far behind.

--
Chris Anderson
Director, Technical Support
Unify Corporation



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Adrian Miller [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Monday, November 22, 1999 11:48 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Has Microsoft destroyed mailing lists? / Rant Exchange?
>
>
> Another factor is bandwidth, plain text has the smallest
> footprint. A 1K
> message in plain text can be 3K or more in HTML. If you are
> sending out
> hundreds of messages a week this additional overhead starts
> to build into
> more serious numbers. If you stick to the plain text and thus keep the
> message size down you are saving your subscribers both time
> and money. As
> people in Europe have to pay for all the phone time involved
> in being on the
> internet these figures soon start to add up.
>
> Best regards, Adrian Miller (On behalf of Adaptec Software
> Products Group)
> Please reply to me in this newsgroup or via the Adaptec CD-R list
> Adaptec CD-R community - http://www.cdrcentral.com
> Adaptec CD-R Info Grid -
> http://www.adaptec.com/products/overview/cdrgrid.html
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Steve Howie" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, November 22, 1999 7:21 PM
> Subject: Re: Has Microsoft destroyed mailing lists? / Rant Exchange?
>
>
> > On Mon, 22 Nov 1999, Chris Anderson wrote:
> >
> > > In MY humble opinion, Plain/Text has had its day, and is
> long due to be
> > > relegated to the history books.  You may quibble about
> the pro's and
> con's
> > > of HTML vs RTF vs whatever, but the point of email is
> communications.
> And
> >
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > Exactly, and this is precisely why plain text is the lowest common
> > denominator. Just because plain text was the only medium of
> choice back in
> > the 70s shouldn't relegate it to the history books. It
> worked then and
> > still works now.
> >
> > Communication is all about getting *information* sent back
> and forth.
> > Whether you embelish it to look cute with bolding,
> underlining etc., adds
> > nothing to the information content, it just bloats the
> message to a size
> > much larger than it should be, wastes bandwidth and detracts from
> > interoperability.
> >
> > Keep the cute marked-up text for Web pages and local Micro$loth
> > proprietary email systems.
> >
> > > there are better ways to communicate than via plain text.
> >
> > Like?
> >
> > Scotty
> > --
> > Steve Howie                                     [log in to unmask]
> > Netnews and Listserv Admin                      519 824-4120 x2556
> > University of Guelph
> > "If it's not Scottish it's CRRRRAAAAAAAPPPPPP!"
>