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A few years (almost two decades!!!) when the filters weren't as good I read a proposal to make an email system that charges $0.01 to the sender. Spammers would

by irixusr 11y ago

A few years (almost two decades!!!) when the filters weren't as good I read a proposal to make an email system that charges $0.01 to the sender. Spammers would be bankrupt. It was difficult to implement and up against an already entrenched tech. With Bitcoin I've been thinking of that idea again. Could a payment system on top of existing email be created? The receiver of the email could get the senders penny and Bitcoin might get a killer app that doesn't involve drugs...

derefr 11y ago
It could be even more convenient, if it only charged for unauthorized contacts. Emails back and forth between friends/coworkers? No charge. Email newsletter you signed up for? One-time cost to them to send you the opt-in message. Random spammers? Never get authorized; have to pay every time. It would also put a slight amount of friction in place for contacting people out-of-the-blue (when e.g. sending fan-mail to famous people)—but the fact that some stranger paid $0.05 to say something to you could also make you just fractionally more interested in what they have to say. On the other hand, for accepting bug reports, help tickets, etc., there'd have to be some kind of email equivalent to an "800 number", that is free to initiate contact with. Either that, or a lot of behind-the-scenes pairing magic to get your email address into the directory service of all the products and services you use.
- irixusr 11y ago
  You're assuming people want to be contacted by people in their address list :D For me there's an annoying aunt who periodically send the latest get-mad-at-this email. Or, how many times do we receive a mass email from friends who use CC instead of BCC and then we're flooded by everyone's replies? If you're in my address book, then you should be charged more!
  - derefr 11y ago
    The difference, I think, is that you can at least apply individual filtering to the problems of annoying aunts and mass-emailing friends, of the same sort as you see with Facebook's "remain friends but unfollow" option. Spam is hard because there's no manual filter you can write that targets "everyone you don't know", without removing the ability to be reached-out-to by real people who have a genuine desire to tell you something you care to hear.
colechristensen 11y ago
It's pretty simple, create an email client and/or server which bounces emails from new addresses indicating delivery costs 1¢ paid to the receiver.
kpcyrd 11y ago
Obligatory: http://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt http://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt
- irixusr 11y ago
  Love it. But seriously, does it still fail if I have a local filter were I strongly prioritize emails of ppl who show up on the BC ledger? If ppl in high tech start doing this to lower their own email burden, I can envision normal business ppl copying the technique to lower their own.
scintill76 11y ago
Or use Hashcash, which is a proof-of-work algorithm created for anti-DoS and anti-spam, and the inspiration of Bitcoin's mining algorithm. It's possible the botnets are strong enough to create Hashcash or mine Bitcoin and still spam enough to annoy us... and it would probably take either Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft announcing they would stop accepting legacy emails (where "legacy" could just be ones without Hashcash or BTC), for anyone to make a change.
bad_user 11y ago
SMS messages are somewhere around $0.01 to $0.04 for sending in bulk, depending on region. Doesn't stop spammers. And a fee will also never, ever fly for email, being not a matter of entrenched tech, but rather one of artificial scarcity, being the reason for why SMS is dying.
- irixusr 11y ago
  The artificial scarcity argument is interesting, but I don't think it applies here. I'm not proposing paying a third party to send me email. You'd be paying me for my scarse resource - my time and inbox space
deleted 11y ago
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by irixusr 11y ago

derefr 11y ago

It could be even more convenient, if it only charged for unauthorized contacts. Emails back and forth between friends/coworkers? No charge. Email newsletter you signed up for? One-time cost to them to send you the opt-in message. Random spammers? Never get authorized; have to pay every time. It would also put a slight amount of friction in place for contacting people out-of-the-blue (when e.g. sending fan-mail to famous people)—but the fact that some stranger paid $0.05 to say something to you could also make you just fractionally more interested in what they have to say. On the other hand, for accepting bug reports, help tickets, etc., there'd have to be some kind of email equivalent to an "800 number", that is free to initiate contact with. Either that, or a lot of behind-the-scenes pairing magic to get your email address into the directory service of all the products and services you use.

irixusr 11y ago
You're assuming people want to be contacted by people in their address list :D For me there's an annoying aunt who periodically send the latest get-mad-at-this email. Or, how many times do we receive a mass email from friends who use CC instead of BCC and then we're flooded by everyone's replies? If you're in my address book, then you should be charged more!
- derefr 11y ago
  The difference, I think, is that you can at least apply individual filtering to the problems of annoying aunts and mass-emailing friends, of the same sort as you see with Facebook's "remain friends but unfollow" option. Spam is hard because there's no manual filter you can write that targets "everyone you don't know", without removing the ability to be reached-out-to by real people who have a genuine desire to tell you something you care to hear.

colechristensen 11y ago

It's pretty simple, create an email client and/or server which bounces emails from new addresses indicating delivery costs 1¢ paid to the receiver.

kpcyrd 11y ago

Obligatory: http://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt http://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt

irixusr 11y ago
Love it. But seriously, does it still fail if I have a local filter were I strongly prioritize emails of ppl who show up on the BC ledger? If ppl in high tech start doing this to lower their own email burden, I can envision normal business ppl copying the technique to lower their own.

scintill76 11y ago

Or use Hashcash, which is a proof-of-work algorithm created for anti-DoS and anti-spam, and the inspiration of Bitcoin's mining algorithm. It's possible the botnets are strong enough to create Hashcash or mine Bitcoin and still spam enough to annoy us... and it would probably take either Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft announcing they would stop accepting legacy emails (where "legacy" could just be ones without Hashcash or BTC), for anyone to make a change.

bad_user 11y ago

SMS messages are somewhere around $0.01 to $0.04 for sending in bulk, depending on region. Doesn't stop spammers. And a fee will also never, ever fly for email, being not a matter of entrenched tech, but rather one of artificial scarcity, being the reason for why SMS is dying.

irixusr 11y ago
The artificial scarcity argument is interesting, but I don't think it applies here. I'm not proposing paying a third party to send me email. You'd be paying me for my scarse resource - my time and inbox space

deleted 11y ago

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