Re: Excerpt on SPAM from Edupage, 11 February 1997

["Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>]

At 10:19 AM -0600 2/15/97, Roy M. Silvernail wrote:

>I much prefer the plan where a potential mail correspondant includes an
>e-cash dollar directly cashable by me.  If I like the mail (and the
>sender), I throw the dollar away and the sender goes on the approved
>list.  If not, I keep the dollar, and the sender goes on the twit list.
>Paper junk mail costs an advertiser more than $1 per piece, so they'd
>still be getting a bargain.  And potentially, some receivers may throw
>away the dollar and welcome the spam.

The basic flaw in all of these schemes is that they are "top-down"
solutions, imposed on the market for invented reasons.

The reason paper mail "spam" (advertisements, solicitations, whatever)
costs whatever it costs (hint: less than a dollar...check the Bulk Rate
prices, and look for the 8-cent and 16-cent stamps on many of the
solicitations) is because this is what the Postal Service charges.

Granted, the USPS is hardly a free market player, and uses force to keep
out competitors, but the general principle is that some semi-market-based
fee is charged, and larger packages will cost more, etc.

The basic flaw with e-mail is that the senders of e-mail are not paying for
carriage.

However, just "making up" a fee--as Roy does here, and as Jim Bell and
others have done before--is not a solution either. Nor does it stand any
chance of being "enforced" (for a large number of reasons I won't get into
here).

I don't expect any solutions anytime soon, but I certainly will not push
for "synthetic" prices which do not solve the underlying problem.

--Tim May




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