David P James wrote:
No, he's right. Just because a US penny is a lot of money, doesn't mean they don't have a computer nearby.On Sat 22 May 2004 14:07, John L Fjellstad wrote:David P James <dpjames@rogers.com> writes:Not everybody has the same buying power. A few pennies might not be much for someone living in the Western World, but it might mean a meal for someone from Somalia or Vietnam. Should email be limited to those who can afford it?If someone is living such a hand-to-mouth existence it's highly unlikely they'll even have access to the internet.
For those who are somewhat better off, there are a number of things to consider.
There are issues to consider for EVERYONE.
Those with whom that person is likely to be communicating via email will be under similar circumstancesThey are? I, and many other people I know value diversity. I sure as hell don't limit my acquaintances by the economic similarity of their lives.
Second, it is probably better to think of this system as one of including a deposit which in all likelihood will be returned (if only because the recipient might have to pay access your inbox to reply).So we're talking about exchanging pennies as tokens that represent our goodwill or authenticity? What if the spammer stands to gain 1.2 pennies from sending the spam?
The whole idea is just daft.
Third, even if you don't get your payment back, email will still be cheaper and more reliable than most of the other options available to you, such as mail and telephone.Snailmail and telephones are becoming obselete, precisely because of the freedom and ease that email currently offers.
No system is ever going to be completely accessible to the destitute,Why the hell not? If it isn't accessible now, then it's our duty to make it accessible. Not to give up or say screw it, and make things worse.
The current state of email is another example proving the economic concept known as "The Tragedy of the Commons". Any valuable 'free' resource (I say 'free' in the sense of free to the user) will be overusedEmail isn't overused. It's underused by most, realised by some, but also abused by an entirely different group of people. Solutions that infringe the rights of many to spite a few are ridiculous and misguided.
A communication system based on recipient bears the preponderance of costs will always be open to such a problem (iirc, this problem existed with faxes as well).Spam faxing was made illegal, at least in the UK. I'm not aware of major failures in fax use here.
As an economist, I look at the billions of dollars, resources and manhours wasted on dealing with spam and think of all the investments, jobs and other more useful spending and activities that didn't take place because of it.As an economist, you're missing the big changes that a few pennies here and there can make. I'm surprised.
-- Lee Braiden lee_b@member.fsf.org