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Spammers have to donate a token amount to the postal service before their real-world letter or pamphlet can reach my physical inbox. And I still get that spam.

Spammers have to donate a token amount to the postal service before their real-world letter or pamphlet can reach my physical inbox. And I still get that spam. So why would payment stop digital spammers?

asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
I still get some snail mail spam, but much less than I used to. Also, I think a dollar per message is far more than spammers usually pay for sending snail spam.
willcipriano 5y ago
The USPS offers spam as a service, those senders pay rates lower than you can get as someone sending grandma a birthday card.
- somehnacct3757 5y ago
  Gated's website contains a CTA for Sender Accounts which will be the same exact situation for email. Donate $X for the privelege of bypassing the standard rate and continue spamming their users. It's the same toll booth strategy as the ad blockers that tried to shake down the digital ad market. Trust us to protect your inbox, unless of course a Preferred Gold Partner tries to contact you. This time it's laundered thru a donation rhetoric. They aren't even a non-profit themselves, and they have investors to pay back. Anyone who signs up for Gated (it's free!*) will in time find themselves The Product which Gated sells to their real volume customers, spammers. Getting back to my original point, while Gated at scale would increase the price of spam it wouldn't stop spammers. Their business model relies on the existence of spammers so why put them out of business?
  - mmmoody 5y ago
    Thank you for being curious about what we're building! - We keep the power in the hands of users, not senders: Each Gated user sets their donation amount, chooses their nonprofit, and can Gate unwanted senders. In a world of automated email marketing technology driven by B2B selling, we're committed to building the first "buyer-side" tech. - Our nonprofit-focused model is based on early research with users who saw greater value in giving to nonprofits than collecting payments for themselves. We partner with Getchange.io to ensure transparency and accountability in payments to nonprofits.

asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago

I still get some snail mail spam, but much less than I used to. Also, I think a dollar per message is far more than spammers usually pay for sending snail spam.

willcipriano 5y ago

The USPS offers spam as a service, those senders pay rates lower than you can get as someone sending grandma a birthday card.

somehnacct3757 5y ago
Gated's website contains a CTA for Sender Accounts which will be the same exact situation for email. Donate $X for the privelege of bypassing the standard rate and continue spamming their users. It's the same toll booth strategy as the ad blockers that tried to shake down the digital ad market. Trust us to protect your inbox, unless of course a Preferred Gold Partner tries to contact you. This time it's laundered thru a donation rhetoric. They aren't even a non-profit themselves, and they have investors to pay back. Anyone who signs up for Gated (it's free!*) will in time find themselves The Product which Gated sells to their real volume customers, spammers. Getting back to my original point, while Gated at scale would increase the price of spam it wouldn't stop spammers. Their business model relies on the existence of spammers so why put them out of business?
- mmmoody 5y ago
  Thank you for being curious about what we're building! - We keep the power in the hands of users, not senders: Each Gated user sets their donation amount, chooses their nonprofit, and can Gate unwanted senders. In a world of automated email marketing technology driven by B2B selling, we're committed to building the first "buyer-side" tech. - Our nonprofit-focused model is based on early research with users who saw greater value in giving to nonprofits than collecting payments for themselves. We partner with Getchange.io to ensure transparency and accountability in payments to nonprofits.