On November 14, 2008 at 15:57 sethb(_at_)panix(_dot_)com (Seth) wrote:
Barry Shein <bzs(_at_)world(_dot_)std(_dot_)com> wrote:
Bulk commercial emailers should be made to pay. It would produce many
benefits.
Better yet, why not just make spammers pay? That would produce even
more benefits.
Well, that would be the ultimate goal, yes.
But to do that you need an economy of some sort, it's not likely to
happen for free with a completely free medium as we have seen.
Notice for example how much more activity there is (justified or not,
I just mean as a point of fact) regarding music piracy and charging
for music online. Why? Well, there's money on the table.
But they were smart enough not to just only go after pirates. And
forget the sob stories there were some egregious pirate sites, some
had 100,000+ selections and were selling them 3 for a dollar just like
iTunes et al only cheaper.
Barry, don't tell me that's infeasible or impossible, that would just
be a strawman argument, procrustean claim, 'sophomoric "proofs"', etc.
I didn't say it's infeasible etc.
You must be amusing only yourself.
HOWEVER...
In my description I don't need to distinguish between spam and other
commercial email. I consider it all billable.
As an example, we get a lot of "spam" from constant contact.
They might protest the label. But can they possibly be sending to
staff aliases here like info, sales, etc if they were exericising even
the most minimal constraints. Nobody on those aliases ever performed a
double opt-in (I know because for some of them *I* am the only
recipient!)
But I don't want to distinguish, I don't want to have that discussion,
I just think someone like constant contact should pay a small and
reasonable fee for what they use (of course they could pass that on to
their clients.)
And then maybe it would be worth our while to gather and send back
lists of aliases etc they are paying for but aren't appreciated.
That's called an economy.
What we have now is just a clusterf***, something which we outgrew
over a decade ago.
If I sell pencils I don't really care who buys them or what they write
with them.
But if I give them away for free...aha! Now I have to institute
rationing, decide who is worthy of a free pencil, I would like to know
what you will do with that pencil, etc.
Screw that. I just want to be paid.
Of course, the corollary is that spammers cum spammers won't be able
to pay, and there'd be money for enforcement and an interest in
enforcement (because there's money involved.)
Graffitti on walls in public places is just a big nuisance, a time and
money sink. It seems impossible to stop.
Graffitti on public paid-for billboards is relatively rare and quickly
fixed.
--
-Barry Shein
The World | bzs(_at_)TheWorld(_dot_)com |
http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 800-THE-WRLD | Login: Nationwide
Software Tool & Die | Public Access Internet | SINCE 1989 *oo*
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