Howsabout the whole damned phone system? Isn't that essentially a
"micropayments" system in many aspects?
In some, yes, in others, no. It differs from e-mail in that it's a
closed
system, with relatively few players, rather stringent barriers to entry
One big difference I see is that with the phone system, you can only
make one call at a time. With email, you can (continuing with the
phone/email analogy), make thousands of calls at a time. Yes, you have
"boiler-room" situations that generate "phone spam", but the cost to
the boiler-room operator is high, and they have to pay people to staff
them (or go illegal..)
And on the receiving end, there is a limit to how many junk-calls I
can receive (24 hours in a day, and I'm going to cancel my phone
service or complain to my Congressperson long before that limit is
reached). With email, there is a similar limit (size of my inbox), but
that is still enough for a couple hundred spam messages. (I'm not sure
that last argument really holds water, but maybe it does)
Jim Witte
jswitte(_at_)bloomington(_dot_)in(_dot_)us
Indiana University CS
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