Noel writes: > It *better* be solvable, otherwise when email > becomes 99% spam, everyone will stop reading email. I wouldn't worry about that. When everyone stops reading e-mail, spam will disappear again. Remember, spammers only send out spam because people reply to it. If nobody replies, they'll stop. Actually nearly 99% of my e-mail _already is_ spam, but I still read the non-spam messages. As for the problem being solvable, I'm not at all confident about that. It's interesting to note that almost all spam references a handful of products or services. Clearly, there are quite a few people out there who want larger penises, or are in tremendous debt, or are being crushed by large mortgages, or are in search of pictures of teenage girls, otherwise these advertisements would not dominate spam. And somebody is still trying to cut deals with mysterious executives of Nigerian Oil Development Central Bank, judging by the number of letters I receive on that. Maybe the real problem is that there are too many dolts on the Net who actually reply to this spam. Eliminate them, and the spam will go away. Maybe an IQ test for each new Internet subscriber; anyone with a single-digit score isn't allowed to sign up without adult supervision. > I'm willing to spend $.25 to communicate with someone > I've never sent email to before. I'm not. The e-mail only costs $0.000000007 to send, so why should I give anyone $0.25 for it? > I doubt very much the spammers who boast of sending > millions of messages a day are willing to spend $.25 > each message for the privilege. I don't blame them, nor do I think they should be required to pay that. I won't even spend that on one message. If I want to throw money out the window, there are already lots of other scams that will deprive me of my wealth just as quickly.