[thelist] The Spam Argument [long] (was: Hiveware email address encoder)

[Frank]

At 04:44 PM 2003-07-24 -0700, you wrote:
 >a rather draconian solution for spam....

 >since we all agree the issue really isn't whatever form an
 >email address might be in on a particular site....

 >we all..i think...agree that the real issue is/are the
 >#$%$&%&% who do spam...

To play the devil's advocate, I'll disagree.

[NOTE: This comes very close to sounding like a rant. It's not, it's an 
opposing point of view as was presented to me--massively paraphrased, of 
course.]

The real issue is not people who spam. It is those who make it financially 
viable to spam. I know a couple of people who are crossing the line between 
"targeted email" and spam, one in particular is a friend. Know who these 
people are? Most spam (I've observed) comes from entrepreneurs, home 
businesses, and very small businesses (such as MLMers. It's rarely the 
large corporations that spam; they can afford TV and radio time, glossy 
brochures and so on.

I say: Spam sucks. It's a waste of my time and bandwidth, and I'm paying 
the server bills and the latency on the network.

She says: I'm simply making use of the ability to communicate with people. 
I don't scour the net for emails, I'm handed lists by people who have 
signed up for service X. I'm simply using a strategy that has worked since 
the beginning of human kind: I'm making people stand up and notice. Who are 
you to tell me that I don't have the right to communicate with another person?

My communications are costing exactly the same amount as any other email.


I say: It's intrusive.

She says: So what? Televisions commercials are intrusive, yet it funds a 
billion dollar market. I'm providing a valuable service. It's so valuable 
that people PAY me to do this for them. I'm doing this to feed my 10 year 
old girl and my 6 year old boy. I'd rather make someone go though the 
effort of hitting the "delete" key than let my children starve.


I say: This is a big deal to many people.

She says: It's mostly a big deal to two groups of people. ISPs, because a 
portion of their customers complain about it (the squeaky wheels), and the 
people who own, run and work for the ISPs want to continue making a buck, 
so they can feed their kids. So they acquiesce, and in doing so legitimises 
the whines of a minority. Second, it's a big deal to a number of individual 
users who don't are either  ideological zealots, or people who won't take 
responsibility for their own life circumstances.


I say: That's pretty damned harsh! What about unsolicited porn?

She says: If an adult receives unsolicited pornography, it's up to them to 
have the maturity to handle it. True, they may have kids, but they *are* 
parenting responsibly, aren't they? It's not up to me to parent someone 
else's child. (Besides, I don't do porn.)


I say: Why would you send email to people who don't want to receive it?

She says: I can't know that they don't want to receive it until they tell 
me they don't. When they do, I take them off the list. It's a fact of 
nature that most women will not approach a man and ask him to sell his best 
qualities, a customer will rarely go out of his way to learn about a 
product he's never heard of. If men were to assume that women don't want to 
have relationships until they approach the men, our race would have been 
long dead.


I say: But large companies have to manage mail for a lot of people, that 
costs money in terms of man power.

She say: Cost of business in the modern age.  Deal with it. Until the 
advent of the telephone, businesses didn't have to pay for operators, 
either. What is considered a "cost" to the businesses is known as "a job" 
to a person.


I say: But spam can be dangerous, it can contain viruses.

She says: Pull your head out of your @ss. I send email, not viruses. I 
wouldn't stay in business long if I sent out viruses. I also don't send 
scams, or chain letters.  Trying to sneak that into the conversation is a 
pretty sad ploy.


I say: Some people consider spam, or it's content offensive.

She says: Some people consider free speech offensive. So what? If they are 
offended, there's a chance that they won't show interest in, or buy the 
product, there are some that won't be offended and will.  If I had not sent 
spam, I can guarantee that none would have shown interest.


Final thoughts:

Spam is not evil. Spam is a symptom of a society that places such a high 
emphasis on making money. Our society says "No money, no honey". In a ideal 
world, a woman would value a man on welfare equally with the billionaire. A 
man would be as attracted to an ugly woman as a beautiful one. This is not 
an ideal world, it's the real world: deal with it

In a world of 6 billion people and easily as many products all competing 
for your dollar, there are no more easy answers.

We live a society where it's no longer possible to grow and hunt one's own 
food, and that all survival and leisure aids must pass though this 
capitalistic system. This is simply how the system works, whether it's via 
email, or TV or newspapers or word of mouth.

Until such time as people stop staring in slack-jawed glassy eyed 
fascination Flash banners, colourful layouts with glossy brochure-style 
pictures, until such time as people stop acting like stupid 
stimulus-response consuming machines, they deserve what they get. The way 
to make spam stop is to put your hand on your wallet and say "The buck 
stops here". It took the spam system time to be born, and it'll take it 
time to die, if we do so.

Until such time as people (en-masse and as individuals) start using their 
brain and basing they choices on rational decisions, rather than emotional 
impulses, spam, TV commercials, glossy flyers in the mail box will all 
continue to work. Until such time as the population stops making it 
profitable, it deserves every piece it gets. These are the principles of 
democracy, capitalism and free speech.

"What we've got here, is failure to communicate. Some men, you just can't 
reach, so you get what we had here last week.... which is the way he wants 
it.  Well, he  gets it. I don't like it anymore than you men."  [from Cool 
Hand Luke.]