<< The idea of the Internet breaking down, due to an overload of messages,
was
brought up here. I began wondering: if the amount of information the
Internet can handle at any given time is limited, then won't the price of
sending a given amount of information through the Internet go up to match
the
demand for the limited resources? I don't see how an overload could happen
if
as the overload threshold was being approached, the price to send messages
kept rising, thus cutting down on the length of messages people send, since
it
will cost more to send a longer message. Is my theory correct? >>
It would seem the same thing should work for electrical power but it does
not. There are still brown outs due to overuse of power. The price cannot
change fast enough.
To apply this specifically to the e-mail situation you have to think about
how much it costs you to send every byte of e-mail. If you're like me, than
you are paying a set price per month. I could have my computer 24 hours a
day spewing out snowballs left and right and it would not cost me a penny
more than my monthly fee. Now, if thousands, or a million people did that,
the net might crash, although I doubt it.
Dan Hook