What they compare is mass media (which is clearly public) and communication i.e. phone and post (which I would describe as nearly entirely private).

I think you might be surprised. The postal service transports a lot of things that don't fit under "private" communications (e.g. newspapers and magazines). As for the phone system - I hear that this "World Wide Web" thingy is taking off and using up quite a bit of bandwidth :-)

Bulk wise, public wins. Profit wise, private wins.

Perhaps public/private is wrong distinction

Possibly. For example, look at the blogsphere where you're getting conversations built around authors rather than topics. It's all interesting stuff.


In reply to Re: Re: Re^3: Public and private communication by adrianh
in thread Public and private communication by zby

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