Actually the underlying intellectual conceit of market fundamentalism is that
the market is a perfectly tuned feedback loop.
The are a huge number of problems with that view. Not least the fact that like
any other ideology, market fundamentalism is too simple to be a univeral
solution to every problem and the fact that as with marxism and any other
ideology that is tried in practice, the proponents are certain to carve out
exceptions whenever the ideology does not meet their a-priori goals.
But on a strict level of control theory, the existence of a feedback loop does
not imply effective control. There is the question of gain and the rather more
subtle issue of timing. Poorly tuned control loops can make the problem worse.
In this case the value to me of sending this email to this list is rather less
than the value a spammer would obtain through successful spamming. The value to
me of sending this message is almost certainly negative: if I had to pay to
send it I would almost certainly occupy my time more profitably doing something
else. Ergo there is no price regime that has the desired outcome.
and then there is the fact that in the fifteen plus years I have been looking
at micropayments, nobody has proposed a scheme that looks remotely viable to me
as a solution in this instance.
We do not need to charge for inappropriate use of email, we only need to
penalize inappropriate use.
________________________________
From: asrg-bounces(_at_)irtf(_dot_)org on behalf of Steve Atkins
Sent: Thu 11/13/2008 2:48 PM
To: Anti-Spam Research Group - IRTF
Subject: [Asrg] Email Postage (was Re: FeedBack loops)
This is nothing to do with feedback loops.
On Nov 13, 2008, at 11:43 AM, Barry Shein wrote:
How about: If it's commercial, and it hasn't been paid for by the
sender (i.e., to the ISP who might pass that along as s/he sees fit),
and the ISP declares that it should have been paid for, then it is
spam?
Period. The rest is implementation detail.
I mean, how f****** crazy have we become?
The only way to make a resource valuable is to make it scarce.
We have done quite the opposite on the spam front so encouraged its
proliferation.
Q1. But what is commercial? And how high is the sky? And what's the
meaning of summer?
A1.1 It's commercial if the ISP says it is. Don't like the definition?
POUND DIRT, find another provider, etc.
Q2. But how are you going to make this policy airtight and perfectly
impermeable because as WE ALL KNOW if just ONE message slips thru
unbilled then WE MUST LET ALL MESSAGES THROUGH FOR FREE!
A2.1 Is your whole family mentally ill, or is it just you?
A2.2 Charging for something creates an economics around its
control. So how well is the IETF paying y'all to participate in ASRG?
Oh, right, yeah I know...phew (shakes head in disbelief.) See A2.1.
Q3. But it's morally wrong to charge for commercial (i.e., any) email!
Your customers are already paying for it! What about commercial email
THEY WANT!
A3.1 I assume this is the reason your postal service delivers all your
(commercial) mail w/o charging postage? Ooops, waitaminit.
A3.1 See A2.1.
---
Put simply, anti-spam should be a process of creating a cost to
sending commercial (and, by extension, any) email: to delineating and
implementing policies, protocols, etc.
Any other goal (sub-goals aside), like how are we going to keep this
all you can eat party going and just discourage people who eat too
much (why, some fill their pockets!!!) is nutso nutso nutso.
--
-Barry Shein
The World | bzs(_at_)TheWorld(_dot_)com |
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