what may not be apparent now, with hindsight, is that we had not expected that the internet was inching towards the mainstream; much of the bushy-tailed optimism/youthful folly of the times was that many of us had thought the mainstream would approach the internet as it inched online.

(did anyone celebrate 30 years of Eternal September last month?)

It was certainly not inevitable in the sense that nobody ever had a choice to do anything other than send spam. It was (and is) always a choice, and the choice of "Don't harass countless others for a chance at your own personal gain" was always on the table.

It was only inevitable in the sense that given enough time some percentage of parasitic assholes will exist who will be willing to do anything to benefit themselves no matter what the consequences of their actions are for others.

There's a world of difference between "this was always going to happen" because of the natural laws of the universe and "this was always going to happen" because some people actively choose to be dicks, and I think people like Laurence Canter think their actions are somewhat excused because of the "inevitability" of what was always just their own selfish choices.

It was inevitable in the singular meaning of the word. Spam would have happened even if this couple had never existed. There is no outcome (*) where the Internet stays free of spam (or other intrusive commercialization) forever.

(*) I should qualify, I'm speaking only of our /present/ universe. It's possible that in another multiverse, no human decides to put their personal gain above others.

the concept "if a little works, a lot will work even better!" is pretty much a given in everything. nobody ever does the "small moves, Ellie". it's "but it goes to 11" on everything. with the painlessness of mass sending of email, there was no pain to cause someone to slowdown. it was an immediate "take of and nuke it from orbit" from the word go on everything.

I agree with that, it's inevitable because of people acting selfishly. You could even argue that it might not have happened under other economic systems which do not follow the principle of the profit motive.

All societies have an attention economy and spam is a "great" way of getting it. It's incorrect to assume other economic systems would not have this problem.

It's easy to say that, but it makes me wonder to what extent that's just projecting our culture onto all other possible realities due to a failure of imagination/taking aspects of our culture as immutable laws of nature.

I think it's way too easy to allude to 'other economic systems' without at all describing how your fiction would be reality.

> but it makes me wonder to what extent that's just projecting our culture onto all other possible realities due to a failure of imagination/taking aspects of our culture as immutable laws of nature.

Right, so lets see, you're hiding something that only you know, for God knows what reason. Then pretending that its other people failing to reach your level of knowledge in the world. You're the all seeing, who knows better than the rest of humanity. We might as well anoint you.

Go on, prove it. I'll ask every single time, and I bet all I will get is cryptic and imprecise responses.

I'm not trying to advocate for communism, if that's what you mean. But yes, in a planned economy, there is no incentive for companies to try to spam you. It doesn't mean that it's a better system or that there aren't other problems with it.

I meant what I said. I think we do have a tendency to project our norms onto other cultures and systems.

Why did you write the exact same comment again?

?

Or even one where the profit motive exists, but doesn't supersede our responsibility to care for each other and the environment we share.

psychologically and in fact, biologically.. the lowest-simplest-most virulent forms of life simply eat whatever, take whatever, shit where-ever.. To know this and distinguish that among other life forms, IMO is basic to self-reflective intelligence. Those individuals without critical thinking skills, on the co-dependent super-highway, that take kindness to mean "anything goes" .. are the support group for this obviously ill behavior. Incredibly fast computers and networks are the enabler.

I'd agree that there's a strong link between the selfish and the lowest, simplest, forms of life. After billions of years of evolution we really should be better.

All economic systems follow the principle of the profit motive. Some of them try to hide that reality from the masses behind various lies and obfuscations.

You could argue that, but I wouldn't believe you. Someone could simply decide to be annoying, like kids throwing eggs at houses. There is nothing "in it for them" but they do it anyway. Hell, it was inevitable that someone's program that posts to a list of groups would screw up and hit massive numbers of targets. No profit, no motive even, just pure accident.

It was inevitable because the design was naive, like the r commands.

sure, but kids throwing eggs at houses isn't as systemic a problem as abusive marketing

I doubt I'd be charmed with getting the latest state propaganda that I'm required to listen to or my social credit score gets debited.

but you'd be able to find it quickly in your inbox!

> natural laws of the universe

> some people actively choose to be dicks

These two are a lot closer than you would like, I suspect.

I am of course assuming that we have choice and aren't living in a deterministic universe where our actions are entirely dictated by natural laws.

The same thing has happened to phones. Spam on my iphone got so bad I set it to block all calls on on my contact list.

My land line has become useless as all I get on it is spam calls. Don't the phone companies realize their users are going to hang up on them unless the spam problem is dealt with?

Wow! When i had a landline - many, many years ago - i got maybe 5 spam calls a year. I have had c20 in 15 years of mobile ownership.

1. EU? Possibly. 2. Do not hang up. A dead line costs them money...you'll soon be taken off the lists.