Jules Richardson wrote: Steve can speak for himself, but my guess is the thinking is like this. (1) getting paid a nominal amount of money makes it worth the time to go to the hassle of packing it properly and going to the post office (2) tossing it out takes no time, money, or supplies (3) either is personally acceptable (4) taking time, effort, and supplies to properly pack it and go to the post office and getting nothing in return isn't acceptable. Another possible angle is: there are many people who will take things for free who don't really need it since it is free. Someone willing to pay for it is more likely to really need/appreciate it. I've given things away for free on craigslist, had people claim interest, then when it comes time to come get it, I hear: boy, you are far away; can you drive 10-15 miles to make it easier for me?

On Wed, 2009-01-21 at 22:31 -0800, Paxton Hoag wrote: As I said in my original post, I ain't giving it away. It's 25 miles each way to the nearest shipping office from my home and I am not going to go to the time, trouble, and expense of shipping this thing to someone that's too cheap to pay a fair price. I've had several people from this list ask me to "give" the machine to them because they happen to have some special attachment. Sorry folks but, unless I get a "reasonable" offer, it's going in the dumpster. I'm also tired of the old argument about preserving technology or the historical significance of a particular machine. BS... That argument always comes from the same group of people who expect to get things for free. Frankly, at this point, I don't know what a reasonable offer is. But I can assure you my time and effort is worth more than a few pennies. I expect to offer some more things on this list in the near future and just want to let everyone know in advance - I AM NOT GIVING ANYTHING AWAY. If you aren't willing to pay for it, don't respond. SteveRob

Sure, but I suspect there's a terminological mismatch here. There are a number of people here, including me, to whom "giving away" means "cover shipping plus a bit over for time, trouble, and materials". (Exactly what "a bit over" means is, of course, always open to debate and, usually, negotiation, but the details don't affect the principle.) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

Jim Battle wrote: Yeah, I guess the vague threat of it being buried in landfill if someone with a conscience doesn't pay for it just disagreed with me; I'm perfectly happy with "I've got some old equipment and I want money in return". I suspect I was just grumpy yesterday, too :-) Yes, I should give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they haven't heard of Freecycle :) That's an interesting one, and not one I'd thought of before! I've known more collectors who take free (or beer money) items and need/appreciate it than I have collectors who pay real money for things, but that's only my personal experience. The ones that really annoy me are the collectors who do so purely for the purpose of taking free items and throwing them on ebay. Shame you can't email ebay a serial number and say "don't let this item ever appear on your website" ;-) cheers Jules