Not to get offtopce, but spam is not "solved". Solving spam would be something that does not require a user to implement filters and other mechanisms to auto-sort things into a junk box.

A solution would be one which prevents the sending of the spam in the first place, or an auto-rejection mechanism that was 100% passive and 100% accurate.

Spam is merely a problem that is manageable with some ultimately clunky tools.

I disagree. All sorts of things use filters to solve problems. From my point of view (an end user), I don't have to configure or manage my spam filters, I just end up not getting spam. I used to, it sucked. But now I don't and it's the same email address. I consider the problem solved.

Right. Just like the internal combustion engine is a kludge because you need to change the air filters in your car. A real solution would be an engine that didn't need filters, anything else is just a clunky hack.

An IC engine would run just fine for quite a long while with no air or oil filters. The filters are there to prolong its lifespan, but are not strictly necessary for basic operation.

How long would your email be usable if you turned off your spam filters?

Engine aire filters are also preventing the INGRESS of foreign contaminants. Most spam filters are much closer to the receiver than the sender. So the spam email volume still moves through many servers, routers and networks before it is finally filtered out and stopped.

I don't think your analogy holds up at all.

There are two sides to the spam problem.

One is managing _your_ inbox. Yes, the tools are there, and if you're using any largish email service provider, you've probably got pretty effective filtering going on.

Try getting on the other side of it, though, and start _sending_ email from a new domain. The same mechanisms which "solve" the inbound problem create a _huge_ issue for outbound. Especially if, say, your business is somehow reliant on being able to reach out and communicate a message to people (I'm not even talking about marketing -- think of status notifications, account mailings, etc., etc.).

I'm a huge believer in email, don't get me wrong. I dislike most of the tools that have come along to "replace" it to some degree or another (how fast would SMS disappear in a mushroom cloud if spammers were to hit it like mail?). But it's gotten really, really creaky.