Re:why is there spam?

From: transtigger@aol.com
Date: Tue Oct 01 2002 - 01:32:58 MDT


From: "TT" <transtigger@aol.com>
X-Mailer: YaBB

[quote from: Damien on 2002-10-01 at 00:58:32]
I really don't understand the motivation, but then I find it hard to
comprehend why TV ads shriek moronic crap in my ears and eyes until I hit
the mute and turn shudderingly away. I assume radio and TV `commercial
messages' with brand recognition must be successful on some marginal level
in inscribing one option rather than another on brains that have
consciously averted their gaze. But that doesn't work with spam. Each day I
have to hose out a dozen or more items of crapulous gibberish that only
someone terminally lonely or stupid would even open and read, let along
respond to. So why do they get sent? Someone is paying for this `service'.
What in dog's name are they getting in return?

Damien Broderick

I think SPAM is more of a virus than a marketing tool. It seems to be
completely untargeted. Most of the SPAM I get originates in the USA, and even
if for some unaccountable reason I wanted to take up an 'instant guaranteed
mortgage' offer, it wouldn't be valid in the UK anyway.

It's got a life of its own. Even if I block a domain it just evolves a new
random domain handle and re-sends the same trash. I wonder how much bandwidth
SPAM takes up on a daily basis?

Personally SPAM puts me off a product and I'd go out of my way not to buy
anything from a company involved in SPAMing. So maybe it could be a marketing
tool after all, in the field of negative advertising...?

J.

----
This message was posted by TT to the Extropians 2002 board on ExI BBS.
<http://www.extropy.org/bbs/index.php?board=61;action=display;threadid=53365>


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:17:22 MST