[extropy-chat] Email Postage

[Keith M. Elis]

To me, it's not about spam, though one of the side effects might be a
reduction in unsolicited emails. I think it's about putting a structure
in place to allow the market to decide the value of a kilobyte of
email. Right now, the market is telling us the value of an email is no
more or less than any other set of packets that passes through your
ISP. Is this really accurate? Sometimes just one email sent, delivered,
and responded to by a client is worth far more to me than anything else
I do on the net that month.  I can envision a situation where I would
want that email to be given special consideration. 

That said, I don't believe charging for individual emails is the right
way to do it at the moment. Instead, a better system would be kind of
like the US cellular market -- a flat monthly fee with some number of
minutes per month. You already pay an ISP for home/office access. Just
tack on a provision to the contract that allows a set number of KB of
email per month, overages apply.   

If the number of KB allowed is not set too high, I tend to think this
system will reduce low-content email from serial spammers, cut down on
low-content forwards from friends and family, cut down on 'me too'
posts and spontaneous irrelevant threads on email lists, and even
improve the quality of unsolicited advertisements you receive, targeted
to you and for higher quality products. I also think this system will
encourage thoughtful people who don't normally send a lot of email to
write and send more. This because they have pre-payed for the right to
send a certain amount of email, they are more likely to find ways to
use it. 

In the end, these pressures will lead to a net improvement in email
quality, with little to no chilling effect on important, high-quality,
high-content emails. Since I think this is true, it is my position
until further notice.  

Keith


Samantha Atkins wrote:

It is a terrible idea.  We have a medium that allows for the free  
exchange of a lot of information between people and computational  
elements.  The suits would like nothing better but to raise mega-$$$  
on the communication flowing across the Net.  If they can do it under  
the guise of protecting us then so much the better.  But the result  
will be a more controlled and far less free and ubiquitous  
communication network.  This also would please many political as well  
as corporate parties and many established powers who worry the Net is  
outside their control and a potential threat.   Please be very  
careful not to give control over content up without a lot of thought  
and a long fight for every bit of freedom the open Net provides.    
This really is not about spam.  A Mind is a terrible thing to control  
and throttle.   Yeah, the Net today is less than a drooling idiot.    
But the potential is vast.  Don't throw it away just to not have to  
filter spam.