Subject: RE: A modest proposal (was: Re: spam)

From: "Michel Py" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 21:02:56 -0700

Peter,

[I like Peter even more after he's had a beer]

> Peter Deutsch wrote:
> You probably know this already, but for those who don't, Brad
> Templeton proposed this scheme a while ago, based upon am
> micropayments model and called it "estamps". See:
> http://www.templetons.com/brad/spam/estamps.html

In a nutshell it's what I proposed yesterday because I still think it's
a good idea.

> He's since repudiated the idea,

I would be interested to know his POV recently. We are getting into an
unprecedented situation; if I compare to junk fax volume (close to zero
AFAIC) and to paper junk mail volume (one useless catalog a day on
average plus 50 pages of el-cheapo printed stuff) the current situation
is that my postman would have to carry 20 pounds of junk if he was
carrying my junk email in printed form. And it's climbing.

Although junk email does not kill nearly as many trees as paper junk
does, it does not make it acceptable.

Three months ago, I thrashed my mortgage bill along with the paper junk
mail [long story, you don't want to know]. Fat fingers sorting it out.

What would subscribers of this ML do if they had to sort out their
legitimate paper mail out of 50 pounds of junk?

Michel.