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I think we just don't have very much competition in telecommunications so things never get fixed. Why bother? It's easier to extract rent off largely the same o

I think we just don't have very much competition in telecommunications so things never get fixed. Why bother? It's easier to extract rent off largely the same offerings as the rest of your market (difficult to understand pricing tiers that function as a congestion tax more than a transaction, often region-specific monopolies or duopolies, indistinguishable quality of service) and bring home large profits, market efficiency damned. Yes, I'm exaggerating. No, it's not by much.

cjbgkagh 2y ago
Almost no-one is pro-spam, it’s pretty much universally hated, and in many cases it’s already illegal so it’s more of a matter of enforcement. It is also trivial to detect. Sure there probably is some regulatory capture but if anything at all can be regulated it’s spam calls / messages. If the government can’t regulate spam then what could it be expected to regulate. The general population is increasing worried about scam calls for their elderly relatives, it’s already a big deal.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  > Almost no-one is pro-spam In fact there are really only two groups that are pro-spam: spammers, obviously, and the entities that provide them services from which they may spam. Oh sure basically any provider of any service be it phone, web hosting, email, etc. will say they don't want spammers, and the email providers may actually mean it what with them not wanting their server's scores trashed and be unable to get email to anyone (though plenty others don't give a shit), but website hosts, telephone companies, and SMS providers? They utterly do not care and in fact go out of their way to not know when spammers are (mis)using their services. Meanwhile like that other commenter said, everyone is incentivized to enter walled garden services that actually do the barest minimum of enforcement for spam activity. I doubt they're conspiring in a dark room somewhere, but neither side is going to upset at the other in that situation.
  - cjbgkagh 2y ago
    Hence my other example of the inability to police prisons enough to prevent abuse, I didn't allege an explicit scheming but a happy little accident. Allowing a problem to fester when it benefits you is totally normal and expected behavior. But if there is a role for government at all it would be regulate such dysfunctions.
  - iudqnolq 2y ago
    Not quite. For example politicians benefit from being able to solicit donations over mass text.
  - darby_nine 2y ago
    > In fact there are really only two groups that are pro-spam you forgot the entire marketing industry > everyone is incentivized to enter walled garden services that actually do the barest minimum of enforcement for spam activity These walled gardens actively spam you—that's how they make money. They only act against competing advertisers. For there to be an incentive to avoid spam, we would need a social network not funded by it. To my knowledge this is essentially ActivityPub. In order for ActivityPub to be useful, we need an incentive to drag celebrities away from private paychecks that benefit from manipulation of other social networks (twitter, ig, tt). I don't believe there is any such entity or incentivization right now.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  >If the government can’t regulate spam then what could it be expected to regulate. The (US) government does an excellent job of regulating many things, such as commercial airplane design and construction. Oh wait...
  - darby_nine 2y ago
    > The (US) government does an excellent job of regulating many things, such as commercial airplane design and construction If the US government wanted a healthy industry, they would have bought one or otherwise directed actual competition. Instead we only have Boeing, which taxpayers also subsidized, which seems incompetent and unwilling to acknowledge fault, which seems to be generally a gargantuan waste of taxpayer dollars compared to a properly efficient and reliable no-profit outfit. I don't understand what this has to do with spam.
    - cjbgkagh 2y ago
      I have no idea what you are trying to say, but you appear not to know that the McDonnell Douglas merger was forced upon Boeing by the US government as a ‘cheap’ way to save McDonalds Douglass. Boeing didn’t really have a choice in the matter. It would be highly improbable that the people making those kinds of decisions could successfully regulate an airline industry, or even the much easier task of spam. The US government has also gone to great lengths to protect Boeing from competition by boxing out concord, canadian aircraft, and embraer . I think such companies like Boeing should be considered for-profit arms of the government instead of independent corporations.
- darby_nine 2y ago
  > Almost no-one is pro-spam They are if you point out ads are just spam by another name
treflop 2y ago
Email is easier to mitigate spam with. The whole body of the message is given upfront.
- varjag 2y ago
  It's easy now. It was an unsolved problem two decades ago. And it's not like there's no technical means for the phones either. Just enforcing caller ID would go a long way to curtail spam. Like in our great Red Tape Europe, even with uptick in recent years we have a tiny fraction of spam calls compared to the United States.
  - darby_nine 2y ago
    > It's easy now. If this were true we wouldn't have spam > And it's not like there's no technical means for the phones either. Just enforcing caller ID would go a long way to curtail spam. A) this is insanely naïve given the international treaties that make up telecommunication agreements. B) "Just enforcing caller ID would go a long way to curtail spam." telecoms don't have any clue who is calling, see above comments about treaties.
    - varjag 2y ago
      > if this were true we wouldn't have spam I was replying to the comment asserting that dealing with email spam is easier, which it most resolutely wasn't until the advent of statistical filters. > A) this is insanely naïve given the international treaties that make up telecommunication agreements. Fun thing about treaties and agreements is they are not laws of nature and can be entered, abandoned and amended at will. A lot of regulation is getting constantly updated.
- darby_nine 2y ago
  > Email is easier to mitigate spam with Absolutely disagree, email is the spam king. Just the fact that you can contact someone without consent breaks the entire system.

cjbgkagh 2y ago

Almost no-one is pro-spam, it’s pretty much universally hated, and in many cases it’s already illegal so it’s more of a matter of enforcement. It is also trivial to detect. Sure there probably is some regulatory capture but if anything at all can be regulated it’s spam calls / messages. If the government can’t regulate spam then what could it be expected to regulate. The general population is increasing worried about scam calls for their elderly relatives, it’s already a big deal.

ToucanLoucan 2y ago
> Almost no-one is pro-spam In fact there are really only two groups that are pro-spam: spammers, obviously, and the entities that provide them services from which they may spam. Oh sure basically any provider of any service be it phone, web hosting, email, etc. will say they don't want spammers, and the email providers may actually mean it what with them not wanting their server's scores trashed and be unable to get email to anyone (though plenty others don't give a shit), but website hosts, telephone companies, and SMS providers? They utterly do not care and in fact go out of their way to not know when spammers are (mis)using their services. Meanwhile like that other commenter said, everyone is incentivized to enter walled garden services that actually do the barest minimum of enforcement for spam activity. I doubt they're conspiring in a dark room somewhere, but neither side is going to upset at the other in that situation.
- cjbgkagh 2y ago
  Hence my other example of the inability to police prisons enough to prevent abuse, I didn't allege an explicit scheming but a happy little accident. Allowing a problem to fester when it benefits you is totally normal and expected behavior. But if there is a role for government at all it would be regulate such dysfunctions.
- iudqnolq 2y ago
  Not quite. For example politicians benefit from being able to solicit donations over mass text.
- darby_nine 2y ago
  > In fact there are really only two groups that are pro-spam you forgot the entire marketing industry > everyone is incentivized to enter walled garden services that actually do the barest minimum of enforcement for spam activity These walled gardens actively spam you—that's how they make money. They only act against competing advertisers. For there to be an incentive to avoid spam, we would need a social network not funded by it. To my knowledge this is essentially ActivityPub. In order for ActivityPub to be useful, we need an incentive to drag celebrities away from private paychecks that benefit from manipulation of other social networks (twitter, ig, tt). I don't believe there is any such entity or incentivization right now.
shiroiushi 2y ago
>If the government can’t regulate spam then what could it be expected to regulate. The (US) government does an excellent job of regulating many things, such as commercial airplane design and construction. Oh wait...
- darby_nine 2y ago
  > The (US) government does an excellent job of regulating many things, such as commercial airplane design and construction If the US government wanted a healthy industry, they would have bought one or otherwise directed actual competition. Instead we only have Boeing, which taxpayers also subsidized, which seems incompetent and unwilling to acknowledge fault, which seems to be generally a gargantuan waste of taxpayer dollars compared to a properly efficient and reliable no-profit outfit. I don't understand what this has to do with spam.
  - cjbgkagh 2y ago
    I have no idea what you are trying to say, but you appear not to know that the McDonnell Douglas merger was forced upon Boeing by the US government as a ‘cheap’ way to save McDonalds Douglass. Boeing didn’t really have a choice in the matter. It would be highly improbable that the people making those kinds of decisions could successfully regulate an airline industry, or even the much easier task of spam. The US government has also gone to great lengths to protect Boeing from competition by boxing out concord, canadian aircraft, and embraer . I think such companies like Boeing should be considered for-profit arms of the government instead of independent corporations.
darby_nine 2y ago
> Almost no-one is pro-spam They are if you point out ads are just spam by another name

treflop 2y ago

Email is easier to mitigate spam with. The whole body of the message is given upfront.

varjag 2y ago
It's easy now. It was an unsolved problem two decades ago. And it's not like there's no technical means for the phones either. Just enforcing caller ID would go a long way to curtail spam. Like in our great Red Tape Europe, even with uptick in recent years we have a tiny fraction of spam calls compared to the United States.
- darby_nine 2y ago
  > It's easy now. If this were true we wouldn't have spam > And it's not like there's no technical means for the phones either. Just enforcing caller ID would go a long way to curtail spam. A) this is insanely naïve given the international treaties that make up telecommunication agreements. B) "Just enforcing caller ID would go a long way to curtail spam." telecoms don't have any clue who is calling, see above comments about treaties.
  - varjag 2y ago
    > if this were true we wouldn't have spam I was replying to the comment asserting that dealing with email spam is easier, which it most resolutely wasn't until the advent of statistical filters. > A) this is insanely naïve given the international treaties that make up telecommunication agreements. Fun thing about treaties and agreements is they are not laws of nature and can be entered, abandoned and amended at will. A lot of regulation is getting constantly updated.
darby_nine 2y ago
> Email is easier to mitigate spam with Absolutely disagree, email is the spam king. Just the fact that you can contact someone without consent breaks the entire system.