EMFA: T1E1 - Free E-mail Services, Future Factors - Safdar

["E-Mail for All" <emfa@publicus.net>]

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Theme:  Universal E-mail - Essay 1
Author: Shabbir J. Safdar
E-mail: shabbir@mindshare.net


[Shabbir J. Safdar is a new media political strategist and
co-founder of mindshare Internet Campaigns, LLC in Washington,
DC.  Previously he founded the Voters Telecommunications Watch, a
grassroots Internet advocacy group in New York City.]


INTRODUCTION

When I was initially approached to sit on the Advisory Board of
the Markle Foundation's Email for All campaign I was elated.  
Having always been at heart an email-based activist (I started
the Voters Telecommunications Watch (http://www.vtw.org/) before
the Web hit), I was thrilled that Markle realized that email is
the "killer app".  One of my original in-kind donors, Public
Access Networks in New York City, understood this and had long
had a policy to provide very low-cost, no-frills Internet
accounts whose main attraction was an email address.


But the campaign also posed an interesting dilemma.  If you strip
away the issues of universal Internet access and telephone
service and assume the focus of the campaign is just to ensure
everyone has email once they have net access, the problem appears
to be solved.  This shouldn't be taken to diminish the importance
of Universal Service and the dilemna of the fact that tens of
millions of Americans still don't have simple dialup Internet
accounts, or the luxury of the funds to even pay for even
increasingly cheap computers.  But to a certain extent, the
narrow focus of this campaign seems to be about continuing these
free services, not creating them.


FREE EMAIL SYSTEMS ARE HERE AND AMAZING

Email wasn't always so available.  Any historian of public
internet usage from before the web remembers the burden of
libraries and freenets who had to contend with the technical
infrastructure issues associated with providing email access. 
More than a few librarians approached me at conferences asking me
how to provide email accounts for patrons without incurring the
technical and administrative burden associated with them.


Before free email systems like Hotmail, my answers to such
questions were usually, "Find a friendly ISP".   After Hotmail,
everything changed.  Anyone who had access to the net had an
email address.   The market had created something amazing; an
advertising revenue-driven free service that a lot of people
really, really needed.


Heavily commoditized now, free email is just another feature that
most sites trying to draw repeat business offer to their
visitors.   Site after site now offers it in exchange for
personal information from the subscriber that allows the site to
maximize their advertising revenue.  It seemed perfect; as if the
hand of god had reached down and solved a big problem that hadn't
even bubbled up to "State of the Union" level yet.


GOVERNMENT REGULATORS THAT GET IT

It wasn't until an enlightened government regulator pointed out
the danger of unwanted commercial email (spam) to the overall
cost of Internet services that I realized there was a genuine
danger.   Christine Varney, the most net-savvy Federal Trade
Commissioner ever to hold the position, first posed the question
during the FTC's "Privacy Week" in 1997. During a week of
informative hearings about Online Privacy, spam was one of many
hot topics and she asked the question, "To what extent does spam
increase the cost of Internet services for the average consumer?"
And if for-pay Internet providers may be forced to increase
their fees to subscribers, what will this do to free services?

This started me down a road that only made me even more nervous,
and confirmed the fact that someone needs to be watching this
issue.  Free email services are an amazing thing, and it's not
clear that their existence is inevitable.  In fact, it's not
clear that free email, and other free services, aren't simply
teetering on a precariously narrow ledge.


FACTORS THAT MIGHT END FREE EMAIL SERVICES

The following factors could threaten the future of free email
services, which are critical to the future of Universal Email. 
Although not an exhaustive list, these are the issues I
immediately think of with my Markle Advisor hat on.


1. Tariffing on telephone calls to ISPs

In the last few years concern over high usage of the phone system
by Internet users has resulted in suggestions that calls to
Internet providers should carry a "per minute" charge to account
for the higher usage in traffic.  However it's likely that
implementing such a system would drive people to spend far less
time online, dampening the potential market for free email
systems that thrive on lots of eyeballs seeing lots of ads. Ask
yourself, how much time would you spend sending and reading email
if there was the equivalent of a taxi meter running?


2. Per-packet pricing of Internet traffic

Although lauded by some net.pundits as the solution to the spam
problem, making the sending of email a "pay per byte" system
would stifle email usage quickly.  My own former non-profit, the
Voters Telecommunications Watch, never focused on raising money
and only on organizing citizens in the democratic process.  We
could never have afforded such a system. More complicated
schemes, with redeemable e-postage vouchers, are simply too
unrealistic to be taken seriously.


3. Unsolicited Commercial Email

The costs associated with receiving and delivering email that
people did not ask for and do not want (spam) continue to pose a
very real cost to providers of free email and all Internet
Service Providers every day. At some point the increased cost of
free email facilities (which include additional bandwidth, disk
space, server power, and staff) due to spam will not keep pace
with advertising revenues and free email will not satisfy the
basic business model smell test.


It is crucial that as free email services multiply, we watch as
these and other factors wax and wane to affect their market
viability.  I hope you'll  follow the Markle Foundation's  Email
for All campaign with the same interest. Markle's appreciation
for the important role communications technologies play in our
lives is legendary, and their interest in this topic is crucial
to the future of the Net as a mainstream medium.


[The above essay is the opinion of Shabbir J. Safdar, and should
not be construed to represent the opinion of mindshare Internet
Campaigns, LLC.]





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