From: "Bob Atkinson" <bobatk(_at_)exchange(_dot_)microsoft(_dot_)com>
...
- the technical costs of dealing with spam are trivial per user except
in rare cases. All email is on the order of 5% or 10% of HTTP traffic.
Thus, the CPU cycles, disk space, and bandwidth are insignificant
compared to other services that are considered too cheap too meter.
...
I can assure you that there are email systems in which the CPU cycles,
disk space, and bandwidth are very much critical cost factors.
That reasoning is often advanced by people fighting spam and some
large outfits, but it is bogus. I'd be glad to get a tiny fraction
of the money that AOL spends fighting spam, but that only says that
even a tiny, insignificant cost per user can be multiplied by a big
number of users to yield a big cost.
What is your guess for how much AOL spends per user to deal with spam?
Mine is about $0.05/month or 2% or 3% of their price for a cheap account.
How much do you guess AOL spends on advertising to deal with churn
and attract new customers? I think it's about 100 times as much.
Vernon Schryver vjs(_at_)rhyolite(_dot_)com
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