Your Total Price to Send 15,000 E-mails Is…
Seth Godin has an interesting post in regards to e-mail.
He uses a comparison of stamps, which require you to pay in order to send a letter. Applying some of the same things to mass email could possibly reduce spam, as well as get money from spammers pockets. In theory the idea sounds excellent.
But, just as with snail mail — you still receive unsolicited messages each week (just not as much as you do via e-mail). So, would it really stop anyone from doing the same? E-mail is easier to send because it’s free, but at this point I think there will be many other technical barriers.
One of the first things that comes to my mind is the fact that people can host their own web servers. Not just rack space, but their personal computer. They can set this up with a mail server within seconds and send from a remote location if they so chose. How would this be stopped from ending up in someone’s inbox? It is kind of like creating counterfeit stamps in order to get around the system. They aren’t going through any ISP to send their messages — just their local connection. I guess I think that the Internet is a little more complex than the snail mail system, so i’m still wondering how all of the holes will be filled in.
What are your thoughts?
2 Comments Add your comment
Nick February 20th, 2006
Agreed. Spammers would quickly find a way around the system (stolen credit cards, theft of computers, etc...) and the end user would end up paying for legitimate emails while the spamming problem would still persist. I'd like to see how this turns out.
Nate Klaiber February 20th, 2006
This seems to be a big thing with AOL and Yahoo! at the moment as well. Even then, with just a few ISP's, I don't see this working out to benefit everyone involved. I am seeing it as more of an inconvenience.
This issue is a tough one to tackle and get your fingers around. As much as I hate spam - this is the digital world and therefore very hard to regulate/mandate.
I'm keeping my eyes on this one to see how it unfolds...