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In (Sort Of) Defense of Spammers

Posted by timothy on from the unenlightened-self-interest dept.

CowboyRobot writes "Eric Allman of Sendmail has a rant in which he looks at the economic forces that have led to the spam problem: 'The sad point of all of this is that I'm going to (sort of) defend the spammers and point out that they are responding to basic economic forces that we all respond to at one level or another. As long as spammers can take in more money than it costs them, they will continue to spam. This is "rational" behavior in the economic sense.'" Otherwise known as the Willie Sutton principle.

2 of 663 comments (clear)

  1. For those who don't know Willie by sootman · · Score: 5, Informative

    Willie "The Actor" Sutton was a bank robber. His claim to fame is that someone asked him "Why do you rob banks?" and his answer was "Because that's where the money is."

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  2. Re:crime by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes, but you forgot an important factor. If the person is truly rational, they will use the following formula:

    Expected Gain = (Gain from burglary) - [(Probability of being caught) * (Estimated monetary cost of penalty)] - (Opportunity Cost)

    Opportunity cost is important - my opportunity cost is high, for example, since the next best option for me is my current job, which pays well, has health beenfits, etc. For someone with only a GED, though, it is significantly lower.

    the estimated monetary cost being caught is a value assigned to the penalty (i.e., how much is it worth to me to stay out of jail).

    Given that formula, a truly rational person will burgle whenever the Expected Gain is greter than 0.