It takes me roughly 7 minutes a meg to download. Sometimes it gets as
bad as 10-15 minutes, depending on how busy the other end is. That is
wide open, with no other traffic on my end. I'm in the country, but
not too far out. I'm sure there are those less fortunate than me. Some
lines will only do so-so, regardless of how much spent on a modem.
And some people pay for time online, which is expensive.
</snip>
My mother is on AOL (same ISP I used to be with) dialup and it used to take
approx 5-10 mins to download a 500kb file, after I gave her my external 56K
V90, it cut down the time by half. However, as you've said, this also
depends on the server itself, and not just the users connection.
(audiofind.ru and grammy.ru are prime examples of excessively slow site's).
I'm now on broadband (though it performs almost as bad as 56K dialup
sometimes) and although the download time's have decreased, it is rather
time consuming when you've got several programs to download, and like
myself, applications/website's to develop/update.
I consider it a service to those in the same boat as me, as well as to
the authors who wrote the programs. The author shouldn't have to write
and test the program, buy all of the tools, spend the time and pay for
a way to make the program available alone. A CD helps cut down on
bandwidth for all and makes a great variety of programs available to
people who otherwise might not choose to download them, especially the
big suites.
</snip>
Oh god, don't mention costs. My personal costs for webspace have increased
considerably over the last 3 years (I have had to upgrade several times and
my costs are now ten times what they were 3 years ago, something I am
actually struggling to afford).
Although CD's help cut down on bandwidth (not a problem for me as mine is
unlimited) and make them available to people that as you've said, would or
may, otherwise choose not to download them (not to mention having a
permenant copy of the program in the event of a hard drive dying or needing
formatting), they don't actually help that much. Most internet users that
I've come accross, have said they are less likely to purchase a CD
containing a program simply because after purchasing the CD, they may find
they don't like the program and have thus, wasted the money (not to mention
the issue surrounding security).
Oks, enough of my rambling......... I've got work to do
(
--
Regards
Steven Burn
Ur I.T. Mate Group
www.it-mate.co.uk
Keeping it FREE!
Disclaimer:
I know I'm probably wrong, I just like taking part ;o)