Welcome To Year Of The Spam
Spam: you know it, you hate it. Who the heck actually reads this stuff and thus makes it profitable for people to send? Arstechnica has an interesting story out about how this is finally the year in which spam will become the dominant form of e-mail:
Of course old fashioned snail mail is also plagued by spam-ish ad adverts, but at least they often come with coupons for things you'd already want to purchase. With e-mail, half of the spam most people get is totally pointless and almost ludicrously easy to spot as junk. For example: if you didn't care what Linda and her naughty co-ed neighbor were doing the first 800 times, why would you the 801st? For that matter, have you ever helped any of those poor Nigerians transfer their funds, or maybe won a lottery in a country you've never even visited? Who the heck actually reads this stuff and then buys into it? Apparently there must be somebody out there doing it, or one would figure it would eventually get better, not worse.
Maybe if the RIAA law team could be convinced to start fighting internet spam we'd end up with a situation where it didn't matter who won or lost, we'd all be happier at the end of the day.
