From: mccoy@communities.com (Jim McCoy)
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1996 09:04:33 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Spamming
Message-ID: <v02140b03ae427b8a5793@[205.162.51.35]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


vipul@pobox.com wrote:
> > At 06:09 PM 8/20/96 -0700, Rich Graves wrote:
> <Snip>
> > No.  I think we can all (most) agree that spam-email is like junk-snailmail.
> > In that case there are a few things to consider:
> >
> >   1. Junkmail requires the SENDER to pay for it, not the recipient.
>
>     Internet pricing models are complicated and debatable, but you surely
>     end up paying for snail-junk-mail. Not directly, but hidden in the high
>     first-class mail costs. More mail, more infrastructure, higher costs.
>     This could be quite true for the net also, if we consider bandwidth costs
>     money.

Actually I believe that without "junk mail" costs for regular postage would
probably be higher: less mail = fewer packages over which to amortize the
cost of building the infrastructure necessary for ubiquitous messaging.
Direct-mail organizations get a lower rate by doing a lot of the expensive
parts of post office work themselves (pre-sorting the mail by zip code,
barcoding messages, etc) and not necessrily just based upon volume.  For all
the bitching Americans do about the high cost of first-class mail it is still
the least expensive of any western  nation and offers fairly good service
(and the USPS actually made a profit for the last two years so it is unlikely
that the cost will go up for a while...)


jim