If you raise the cost of sending a single piece of spam sufficiently, spam will vanish.
Assuming that sending spam costs the same as sending other mail, the cost is limited by what people will bear for their legitimate mail. I claim that spammers can simply steal enough money (possibly out of users' mail clients) to pay for their spam.
If they could do that, why aren't they already? Certainly not for ethical reasons...
AFAIK a lot of spam comes from botnets, which are stolen resources. Also, one might argue that spammers are just people who are too dumb or too chicken to engage in real cybercrime, given that it appears to be more profitable.
Re:Spam Back to 94% of All E-Mail
by briansmith on Wednesday April 01, 2009 @01:59AM
(#541436)
Junkmail is not subsidized by the USPS. Why would you think it is?
Re:Spam Back to 94% of All E-Mail
by asciilifeform on Wednesday April 01, 2009 @11:56AM
(#542003)
"Subsidize" was perhaps not the right word. The USPS has become primarily a junk mail delivery service:
http://www.newser.com/story/21936/usps-defends-its-life-bloo...
If you raise the cost of sending a single piece of spam sufficiently, spam will vanish. Exactly the way junk snailmail would, if the US Postal Service did not subsidize it.