Re: [Asrg] More 'pay per' foolishness

[Barry Shein <[e-mail]>]

On December 30, 2004 at 17:53 [e-mail] (John Levine) wrote:
 > But counting the port 25 packets is only related in the most vague
 > sense to actual e-mail costs.  I don't know anyone (other than vendors
 > who want to be the gatekeeper) who thinks there's any merit in
 > charging for mail that isn't spam, and I don't know very many who
 > think there's any merit in charging for e-mail in general other than
 > as an indirect way to stop spam.

I do. I think spam, as we usually use the term (shady crap) is just
the harbinger of an ever-growing wave of email which will be from
people/orgs who will resist any spam label.

This would include charities, political campaigns, the govt, religious
and other nuts of the more popular variety, not to mention
multi-billion dollar corps who can claim some sort of "legitimate
business" relationship with you because you once had a credit card w/
them or a bank they acquired or bought something at one of their
stores, etc etc etc.

I think it's pure pollyanna-ism to believe that all we have to do is
discourage those evil people and everyone else will behave reasonably.

In fact, I'll say that if we ever did manage to stop The Evil Ones
(tm) then all those others will rush in to fill the void, in a new
york minute. We'd have opened the door for them by unburdening the
average user's mailbox with most crap (except theirs.)

To anticipate the obvious question, why hasn't this happened yet?:

Well, I think to some extent it has happened, or is happening.

But two factors are:

a) As unbelievable as it is, I have good reason to believe that most
of those sorts haven't "gotten" the e-mail thing yet, not by a long
shot. In particular mass e-mailing.

b) I think some threshold has to be breached for their marketeers to
say "ok, spam isn't just for breakfast any more, let's go for it!"

That is, something will breach its very negative connotation.

Probably someone like Wal-Mart just saying ``oh the hell with it I'm
sure our 200+M customers would LOVE To hear from us a few times a day
just go for it''. And if someone like that starts, and another, and a
few more, well, it won't be pretty.

And don't kid yourself, when they decide the day has come they'll have
some strategy to make sure they're not treated like spammers like
lawsuits against anti-spam companies or isp's who filter them etc.

 > If you're going to count the port 25 packets, it seems to me that a
 > much cheaper and equally effective approach would be to forget about
 > money and let networks set hourly or daily ingress quotas for their
 > peers.  If someone on network A sends a huge blast of spam to network
 > B, they'll hit their daily limit at 12:05 AM, and no more mail over
 > that path until tomorrow.  Then network A has to deal with the
 > complaints from its own users that their mail is falling on the floor.

Ya ever hear the story about King Cnut? He marched to the shore, held
out his hand, and commanded the tide not to come in.

No economics, no go.

The economics right now go the other way, let 'em do what they want so
long as they send in their $20 and let the PR dept sort out any
damage.

That's what has to be changed.

Of course, if one takes a purely populist view, sure, everything
would be free...how hard is that to sell?

         Chorus:
         Oh the buzzin' of the bees
         In the cigarette trees
         Near the soda water fountain
         At the lemonade springs
         Where the bluebird sings
         On the big rock candy mountain

         There's a lake of gin
         We can both jump in
         And the handouts grow on bushes
         In the new-mown hay
         We can sleep all day
         And the bars all have free lunches
         Where the mail train stops
         And there ain't no cops
         And the folks are tender-hearted
         Where you never change your socks
         And you never throw rocks
         And your hair is never parted...

etc.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

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