3. The hidden cost  One of the things that attracts some people
to the idea of advertising via Usenet is that it costs so little
to do it. You pay $20 per month for an Internet account, and you
can post literally millions of advertisements at no additional
cost.  But there is a cost. Each message you post takes up disk
space on each site around the world where it lands. People don't
much mind paying for disk space to hold Usenet discussions since
they know that people like taking part in those discussions and
since they know that it's sort of like mutual backscratching.
Everyone benefits from interesting, informative, or amusing
discussions, so no one really minds paying for the space.  But
there's only one person who benefits from advertising: the
advertiser.  No one wants to give their disk space for free to
someone who selfishly posts a copy of an advertisement to every
newsgroup on Usenet.  Up: Contents Previous: 2. An analogy Next:
4. How to advertise on Usenet