Perhaps as an exercise we should take a month, stop all spam-related
topics, and discuss how the global postal system or telephone system
should work.
Let's start by looking at how they do work.
Phone and postal systems are either run by national government
monopolies, or else by relatively small sets of private providers who
need a government license to join the club. Members of the club do
not interconnect with non-members; the only way for outsiders to
connect is via a deliberately limited customer interface.
Eleborate and complex billing systems keep track of each message, with
elaborate and complex inter-provider settlement systems managed by
sluggish international bureaucracies (the ITU and UPU) that are part
of the UN.
Except for limited places that offer unmetered service, e.g., local
calls in North America, every message costs at least several cents,
typically more.
Is this the future of the Internet? I sure hope not. For a taste of
what phones would be like if they were run like e-mail, look at VoIP,
which outside of walled gardens like Skype has roughly the same spam
problems as e-mail, and just as little success dealing with it. Google
for RUCUS for more details.
R's,
John
PS: If it's so easy to run a phone company, why isn't World a CLEC?
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