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Apparently enough people ultimately click the links to make it worth it for the spammers, otherwise it would have stopped. It's probably something like less th

Apparently enough people ultimately click the links to make it worth it for the spammers, otherwise it would have stopped. It's probably something like less than 1 in 10,000 emails getting a click, which is depressing when you consider all the computing resources wasted by receiving email servers and then by all the recipients which need to filter out the noise (for example I still at least scan subject lines of items in my Gmail Spam folder). So with that considered, spammers clearly completely lack empathy for their fellow human beings, they have zero care on the cost of their practice, as long as it makes them a few bucks. Sure, there are people who do far worse things, but that fact in no way redeems spammers.

buscoquadnary 5y ago
> So with that considered, spammers clearly completely lack empathy for their fellow human beings, they have zero care on the cost of their practice, as long as it makes them a few bucks. I'll start by saying I in no way excuse like or can stand spammers, I think action should be taken against them as they've destroyed every communication medium in existence. But I have some friends that come from some third world countries in Africa and similar places. From their perspective the few bucks to us makes them some of the richest and well to do people where they are at, and all they are doing is taking it from fat rich wealthy Americans and Europeans that already have too much money, even if the person is close to destitute by our standers from the perspective of many people in the third world if they have a roof over their head and know where their next meal is coming from, to mention nothing of ac and a car they are living an unimaginable lifestyle. My point isn't to defend scammers it's just to point out that many of them arent malicious simply trying to survive in a difficult world, I would argue many of us here on Hm would do the same if faced with the choice after all how many people here already go to work on ad or surveillance tech of dubious ethical vlaue because the pay is insane.
- jonathanlydall 5y ago
  It sounds like these people are small scale spammers, doing things similar to 419 scams. A bit annoying, but really low volume. The kind I'm referring to are single organizations which aim to send out 10s or possibly 100s of a millions of spam emails _every day_. I would expect there to be at least dozens of organizations at this scale. They're the ones who use botnets, open relays, and weird characters in their emails to get around filters.
johannes1234321 5y ago
It is true that it most likely works well enough to get some returns. However on this point: > Apparently enough people ultimately click the links to make it worth it for the spammers, otherwise it would have stopped. Each generation has to learn new. Every day, there is somebody new to try out spamming. Every day somebody got their first mail address and their first spam. Most of those spammers will quit soon again, some will improve and have some small win.

buscoquadnary 5y ago

> So with that considered, spammers clearly completely lack empathy for their fellow human beings, they have zero care on the cost of their practice, as long as it makes them a few bucks. I'll start by saying I in no way excuse like or can stand spammers, I think action should be taken against them as they've destroyed every communication medium in existence. But I have some friends that come from some third world countries in Africa and similar places. From their perspective the few bucks to us makes them some of the richest and well to do people where they are at, and all they are doing is taking it from fat rich wealthy Americans and Europeans that already have too much money, even if the person is close to destitute by our standers from the perspective of many people in the third world if they have a roof over their head and know where their next meal is coming from, to mention nothing of ac and a car they are living an unimaginable lifestyle. My point isn't to defend scammers it's just to point out that many of them arent malicious simply trying to survive in a difficult world, I would argue many of us here on Hm would do the same if faced with the choice after all how many people here already go to work on ad or surveillance tech of dubious ethical vlaue because the pay is insane.

jonathanlydall 5y ago
It sounds like these people are small scale spammers, doing things similar to 419 scams. A bit annoying, but really low volume. The kind I'm referring to are single organizations which aim to send out 10s or possibly 100s of a millions of spam emails _every day_. I would expect there to be at least dozens of organizations at this scale. They're the ones who use botnets, open relays, and weird characters in their emails to get around filters.

johannes1234321 5y ago

It is true that it most likely works well enough to get some returns. However on this point: > Apparently enough people ultimately click the links to make it worth it for the spammers, otherwise it would have stopped. Each generation has to learn new. Every day, there is somebody new to try out spamming. Every day somebody got their first mail address and their first spam. Most of those spammers will quit soon again, some will improve and have some small win.