From: spam@bde-arc.ampr.org 
  
 "Whiskers"  wrote in message 
 news:slrnfufb3o.8t2.catwheezel@ID-107770.user.individual.net... 
 > On 2008-03-24, Chris Barts  wrote: 
 > > Whiskers  writes: 
 > >> 
 > >> Gopher seems tailor-made for 'smart phones'  :))  (If someone ported 
 the 
 > >> software, of course ...). 
 > > 
 > > I don't know. The iPhone seems to do just fine with HTTP and the Web in 
 > > general. Don't make the mistake of designing protocols around the 
 limitations 
 > > of current hardware. (Or, in this case, not-so-current hardware. Gopher 
 > > is well-suited to the limits of phones a few generations behind the 
 curve.) 
 > > 
 > > More to the point, very little is in Gopherspace at this point. The 
 gopher 
 > > archive sites were (apparently) hopping places until about 1993-1994, 
 but 
 > > practically none of them have been updated since. It's interesting for 
 > > historians and nostalgia buffs, but the information is mostly on the web 
 now. 
 > 
 > 'Low bandwidth' and 'small storage footprint' will always be desirable 
 > features - even if 'most people' don't know any better than 'the web'. 
 > The main difficulty for protocols such as gopher, FTP, and usenet, is that 
 > they don't give much scope for advertising so they don't grab the 
 > attention of commercial enterprises whose blinkers are directed at the use 
 > of advertising as "the" way to generate income from the internet.  (The 
 > fact that public fee-charging news servers still exist shows that at least 
 > some end users are willing to pay to go straight to the content or service 
 > they want without having to dig through heaps of adverts for something 
 > 'free'). 
  
 Advertising over FTP?  WTF? 
  
 The fact that there are non-fee charing news servers demonstrate that there 
 are plenty of fools out there willing to pay for something that's free. 
  
 The Internet was never designed as a commercial service. 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)