A Replacement for Email

Is this possible? Will it end SPAM!

[cyril kearney]

The US Postal Service coexists with other companies that handle messages and packages. FedEx, UPS and Airborne are well-known. Internationally there is DHL.

The US Postal Service carries the highest volunn and tries to operate so it just will break-even. The others are for-profit companies.

In the future will we see the emergence of for-profit alternate message carriers on computers. Let's say the mailer would pay these alternate message carriers to deliver their mail.

There would be a set of rules to determine if the alternate message service would carry a message. For one type of message the mailer would have to certify that his mail is non-commercial and advertisement free. For another type, the mailer would have to certify that it is an opt-in. The opt-in certification might have to reside in the database of the alternate message carrier.

Is a system like this desireable? Workable? Could it be profitable?

Let's expand the idea a bit. If it existed, could it be expanded as a means of paying for pay-for-play content. I'll give an example. I have a receive account and I agree to get $20.00 a month of pay-for-play content. I surf a site for the first time looking for something. Lets say it is an article and cost $.05. I agree and get the material and five cents is charged against my limit of $20.00.

This simplifies the transactions. I have an arrangement with the alternate messaging service. A million pay-for-play centent providers have an agreement with the service too. I can access any of these pay-for-play content providers as long as it is within the limits of my agreement with the message service.

SPAM continues but is now limited to the free and open email system. Companies may choose not to handle or give lower priority to the traditional email system. They might route all company internal traffic through the alternate message service. Business partners messages might be routed through the alternate service too.

Any comments?

[Nick_W]

Naaaah, I like email, and I think everyone else does too...

Nick

[toadhall]

A gated community for email?
Smacks of the two-tiered medicare debate up here in Canada; leg room for Bill, cattle car for Ben.
WADR (with all due respect) Nah!

Fight spam in public or risk erosion of the communication revolution the web promised.

Besides, there are already peer-to-peer options and systems like Rebol [rebol.com].

<dream sequence>

News Report:

Flushed with the triumph of achieving a 100% coin-operated society the haves of America suffer pressure on their gilded inboxes by the have-nots who, reduced to graffiti and bumperstickers as communication choices, react with a flood of cracker spam such as:

Spam-free Email for all!

throughout the paid for system, only to be countered in equal measure by government sponsored (corporate driven) just-say-no campaigns that further swell the prison population.

The social slug-fest continues as, co-opting the license plate presses, inmates surreptitiously ship millions of plates reading:

Give me spam-free Email or give me death!

Don't spam on me!

Ah has a Constitutional Right! don't I?

Prison food ain't so bad

and

What part of "delete" don't you understand?

Liberal pundits call for the heads of conservative hacks. Conservative mavens call for the livers of liberal Liberals.

But these partisan smoke-screens of lies, half-truths, and vicious innuendos* serve only to cloud and confuse the real issues! Those being - half price clearout on specially marked boxes of Viagra - Two-for-one warehouse sale of hoola hoops (free shipping) - Get out of debt with an easy term bank loan - etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

* cribbed from the "Collected Speeches of Senator Leghorn Foghorn"

</dream sequence>

[mack]

We are all in agreement that spamm is the pits, but it can also be pretty funny. Like the ones that tell you, you are not listed on all the search engines. (Only another 27353832544 to go in their opinion)

Then there is the one selling that &%$$&^% cam that goes anywhere grrrrrr

Not to forget the one that said " I want to send you 10000 unique visitors today, do you mind?" (If only everyone was so generous)

Then there is the one I get every Monday and Thursday "mortgage advice for Mack" (who in their right mind would ask their mortgage advisor to call them by my their online handle???)

Then there is the classic “I work for an African petroleum company and need to use your bank account to transferee funds into your country.” (Think I should tell them I live in Scotland???)

Then there is the extremely annoying one that you open and nothing happens…sniff sniff…do you smell badtrance???

These things are sent to test us…. Let them waste their time and bandwidth sending us this junk. The only thing that will stop spamm is when the average user knows what it is and knows that no one really wants to make them rich for free. I think it is time the major net players started getting involved in letting their users know what spamm is and how to avoid it.

[toadhall]

>...Think I should tell them I live in Scotland?

I feel a screenplay comin' on! :)

[mack]

"They can send us spamm! But they will never take our FREEDOM!"

hahah OMG :)

[cyril kearney]

The comments that I am getting suggest that not everyone is concerned with spam. This follows my experience in my consulting practice. Client service areas are very wary of mail filters. They don't want to filter out any client even one that might use a phrase that would trigger the filter.

While a major textbook publisher is very concerned about security and viruses, their mail support staff doesn't worry about a few stray viagra emails.