Kent Crispin writes:
I agree. If charging for mail would eliminate spam, then I should not be getting the mailboxfull of physical junk mail I receive every morning. Postage benefits the MAIL CARRIER, not the recipient, and it is in the best interests of the mail carrier to carry MORE mail, not less. So, e-postage will almost certainly cause more spam, not less.
I dunno about the last part of this, but I agree with the basic point (yes, I agree with Kent! It's a miracle! :-). I used to think differently, but I've become convinced that the cost of e-postage isn't going to be high enough that it'll be much of a control. Network bandwidth used for the purpose of email transport, even with increased spamming factored in, is simply too low to justify charging much for it. It will still be *way* cheaper than surface mail. So unless the percentage of people who delete it instantly, sight-unseen, is higher than I suspect or new tools make it easy to filter out all spam, it's going to remain economically advantageous for the spammers to target broadly. -- Jeff