Ben Bucksch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Adam Bailey wrote:
>
>> Point out a single commercial provider that has as many subscribers as
>> AOL and is using POP3.
>
> T-Online has 7-8 Million subscribers. Technically, there's not much
> difference between 30 Million and 7 Million. (Just use 4 times as many
> machines - one hostname maps to n IP addresses.)
That's silly. Scaling doesn't work that way.
>> No one knows if POP3 can scale that high, because no one has tried.
>>
>> Furthermore, POP3 wouldn't interface well with AOL's current IMAP-like
>> system. Does AOL scrap its entire email system and switch over to something
>> completely different?
>
> No, but POP3 can be offered as *additional* protocol. Which would also
> be the answer to you question - only a part of AOL users would use POP3,
> so AOL would have to feed only a few million subscribers. The IMAP-like
> servers might even be dis-stressed by that. (Thus, the overall load gets
> down, because, as I pointed out, IMAP-like protocols cause more stress
> on server.)
But those people using POP3 wouldn't be able to get their mail through the
AOL software. AOL might as well just start an ISP. Which it tried, and
failed.
POP3 isn't an option.
> What am I discussing here?
>
>>> Just ask an arbitary ISP other than AOL. All ISPs I know "support"
>>> arbitary clients, just that the hotline might not be able to help.
>>>
>> No ISP is anywhere near as big as AOL.
>>
>> Furthermore, the bigger ones (ie:
>> EarthLink) are frequently criticized as having lousy support.
>>
> AOL is too *shurg*
>
> Support which is as lousy as that of AOL does scale well - just add
> people. They take only about 2 weeks to learn (anyway). (That's why the
> support is so lousy.)
The point is, providing support for 30 million people is hard enough without
introducing another major complexity.
You're welcome to disagree. Start your own service.
>>> It is trivial to forge emails looking to come from aol members by
>>> sedning them from another ISP.
>>>
>> Not accurately.
>>
> huh? Of course, it's trivial. Just enter a "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" as email
> address in your Mozilla profile.
But it's easy to prove it's a fake. Mail sent through the Internal AOL mail
system can't be fakes.
--
Adam Bailey | Chicago, Illinois
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | Finger/Web for PGP
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.lull.org/adam/
