[TML] xBoat economics

[Tom Naro]

shadow at shadowgard.com" shadow at shadowgard.com wrote:

>Sure, but my point was that unless those x-boats are carrying 
>insanely small amounts of data (relative to what even current storage 
>technologies would allow) at 1 Cr/msg, you are not merely covering 
>operating expenses, you are damn near buying the boat every trip.

>W've got things like ship costs and operating expenses from the 
>rules. And they don't run nearly high enough to justify that sort of 
>cost.

You are putting the cart before the horse. Your income expectations are much too high.   You have calculated the income base on the storage capacity.  Just because your ship can carry billions of messages - does not mean that there *ARE* billions of messages to carry.  Capacity does not equate to income.  The population of the world should determine the number of message that are available for pick-up.  If you examine the populations of the planets where the x-boat hubs exist you will see that the populations (and the corresponding amount of messages) are relatively low.  They are just not large enough to support 150 billion messages per trip.  I pulled a sample quadrant from Ley Sector, since it happens to be the one I am currently modeling.  Of the 22 x-boat hubs, only one had an earth-size population, most had only millions of people, several had only hundreds.  Just what percentage of the population would need x-mail?  20%? 30%?  Even if all the
 nearby systems feed into the hubs, there are just not enough people to support the number of messages  you have proposed.  The potential income you have calculated is unlikely to materialize.

You have been working the problem from only one end.  (The wrong end in my view.)  If you can make a case that there are billions of x-mails sent from planet to planet - please do so.  However the argument that data storage capacity has anything to do with how often people talk to each other is just going to fall flat.

Your main objection to the 1 cr fee is that it results in making "TOO MUCH" money.  That position just not reasonable. Any enterprise seeks to maximize profits.  The Imperium is not some charitable institution, there should be no expectation that they need to offer their services at the lowest possible cost.  I don't need to justify that 1 cr/msg - I only need to show that there is a reasonable expectation that an individual will pay the fee.  You pay it because they told you to pay it. It is the same as postage stamps or gasoline tax.
 
Given that the alternative is to get on a ship (at 1000 Cr, 8000 Cr, or 10000 Cr) and deliver the message yourself,  the small fee of 1 cr still seems reasonable.

>> Just how much does it cost to operate the X-mail system in the first
>> place.  Lets look at that further.... 

Your estimation of the operating costs are much lower than mine.  The x-boat system is made up of much more than just ships and ship operating costs.  There are also ground facilities (x-boat offices), and personnel (not every scout is a pilot, somebody has to keep track of the paperwork) and many, many other costs that are not covered in the rule books.  (Now since there are no rules for ground facility costs or non-starcrew salaries, you are just going to have to use your imagination to fill in the gaps that the rules do not cover.)  A business must account for all income and expenditures.  This is basic economics.

>the *Imperial* traffic pays for the jump and the maintenance.

That is not a reasonable assumption - you are "inventing" income to match your technology.  Since the scout service (and therefore the entire x-boat system) is a direct branch of the Imperial government, there really should be no expectation that any sort of "official imperial" messages would generate income of any kind.  From a strict accounting perspective the "Imperial" traffic is an expense - not an income.   The important and critical "official Imperial" message traffic would be carried by the Imperial Navy courier service (which operates jump-6 couriers).  In any case, there is no income from "Imperial" traffic.  The income from the x-boat system must come from commercial users.
 
Perhaps you should look at the income from another aspect.  What could the scout service do with that income? Could that income possibly be enough to fund other jobs done by the Scout Service.  Perhaps the X-boat income provides the entire operating budget for all of the the Imperial Scout Service.  That would mean that the scout service does not need to be funded by other imperial taxes.  Someone needs to pay for all that exploration and for all the ships that don't carry x-mail.  I know that this seems hard to believe but a bureaucracy can actually pay for itself.


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