Oh no, the idiotic penny black idea rides again.
Like the movie "War Games" when a young Matthew Broderick saves the
world by causing the WOPR computer to be distracted into playing
itself tic-tac-toe rather than launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike.
It was a MOVIE, made in 1983 nonetheless, get over it.
More seriously, what attracts people to this penny black idea is that
they realize that the only thing which will stop spammers is to
interject some sort of economic constraint. The obvious constraint
would be something like stamps since that's a usage fee.
But the proposer (and his/her/its audience) always hates the idea of
paying postage for their own email, no, no, there must be a solution
which performs that economic miracle of only charging for the behavior
I don't like! An economic Maxwell's demon!
So, just like the terminal seeking laetrile shots or healing waters,
they turn to not even half-baked ideas such as penny black. Don't
charge you, don't charge me, charge that fellow behind the tree!
Oh well.
Eventually email will just collapse (as it's doing) and the RBOCs et
al will inherit it and we'll all be paying 15c per message like their
SMS services.
I know, we'll work around it. Of course by then they'll have a
multi-billion dollar messaging business to make sure your attempts to
by-step it are outlawed and punished. Consider what's going on with
the music-sharing world, as another multi-billion dollar business
people thought they could just defy with anonymous peer-to-peer
services...
The point: I think the time is long past due to "grow up" on this
issue and accept that some sort of limited, reasonable-usage-free,
postage system is necessary to prevent collapse into monopoly.
--
-Barry Shein
Software Tool & Die | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202 | Login: 617-739-WRLD
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