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

David A. Ulevitch davidu at everydns.net
Fri Jul 25 05:38:02 CDT 2003


Frank,

Please send the name, address and phone number of your friend.

I'm sure she wouldn't mind my business associates showing up at her
doorstep one late night to recoup the financial losses spam has personally
cost me as a service provider.

I mean, come on; it's only business right?  We shouldn't let morals and
values get in the way?

-davidu

nb: This is said tongue-in-cheek and does not imply my business
associates, if I even had any, would care to visit your friend.  She is
far too eeeevil. :)

<quote who="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.]
>
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----------------------------------------------------
   David A. Ulevitch -- http://david.ulevitch.com
  http://everydns.net -+- http://communitycolo.net
Campus Box 6957 + Washington University in St. Louis
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