On 5/19/02 7:10 PM, "J C Lawrence" <claw@kanga.nu> wrote:
> SPAM is not and need not be profitable to the
> things being advertised. It only needs to be profitable to the
> companies selling the email lists, the send-your-spam-for-you services
> etc.
Actually, the spam market has bifurcated into two or three different groups.
One is the pr0n world, which actually parallels many of the bigger issues of
the spam universe in its way, but I'll leave it alone for now.
Another group is the one JC talks about -- the people who make their money
selling spam kits to stupid/naïve people who get nuked as soon as they start
using them, because they're stupid and naïve. You can tell much of this
stuff in your spam folder -- the more typos it has, the more it's some
trailer-trash that got hooked into what they thought was a legitimate
business or get rich scheme. They're unlikely to make money at it. The guy
who sold them the package, however, did. And all he cares about is getting
the money hidden before the credit card company wants it back...
But there is a group out there who are professional spammers who make their
money generating referrals. Most of the "commercial" spam (and a lot of the
Pr0n spam) comes from them. They're high-volume bulk delivery agents that
you contract to send your stuff, and you kick back a fee for every referral
they generate. These are the guys sending you the refinancing spam, the
viagra spam, etc, etc. And you may not like to hear it, but some of these
guys make a pretty good living at it -- they send a few million pieces of
spam, and get $35-50 a referral. All it takes is a few people saying "you
know, the bank just turned me down, taxes are due, what can it hurt?" to pay
for the spam for both that broker AND the spammer he hired.
(and then there's the nigerian money laundry guys. Heck, all they need are a
few stupid, greedy people. And we all know THAT is in short supply in the
world...)
And that's the bottom line. Spamming DOES work. It works well enough that
there are people who can make a living off the referrals it generates. And
that's why it continues. It doens't matter if it's 2% of sendings turn into
referrals or .02% -- it's a fixed cost industry for the spammer, so as long
as "enough" people respond, he makes money.
> SPAM, its not just a pain any more, its a confidence scheme.
It's junk mail, just like the stuff that shows up in your physical mailbox
every day. And why does that stuff show up? Because a percentage of people
read it and go to the store to buy stuff from it, while at the same time,
another group is complaining about it and a tiny group of activists is
trying to ban it. The only difference is, in the physical mail side, that
bulk mail pays for a huge percentage of the cost of running the postal
service (first class mail is a horrible money loser), while online, email is
"free"... (and since it's perceived as such, it's even harder to get people
to "do something" about ti than with paper "junk mail".
Oops. I think I just broke my quote key from overuse...
--
Chuq Von Rospach, Architech
chuqui@plaidworks.com -- http://www.chuqui.com/
Someday, we'll look back on this, laugh
nervously and change the subject.
References:
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