I simply mean that when the returns are low enough, spammers will stop. If spam produces so much noise that people stop using e-mail, that will stop the spammers. However, I think that for the vast majority of Internet users, spam is only a minor nuisance, and they will probably continue to use e-mail with or without spam. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Thomas" <mat@cisco.com> To: "Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@atkielski.com> Cc: "IETF Discussion" <ietf@ietf.org> Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2003 22:56 Subject: Re: spam > Anthony Atkielski writes: > > 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. > > You mean I might yet achieve salvation without my > procmail rosary beads? Will it be preceded by the > RFC 822 apocalypse? > > Mike >