In (Sort Of) Defense of Spammers

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.

Comments

Re:Spammers aren't the only ones

[ratamacue]

It's amazing that people are so quick to equate victimless crimes (drug offenses) with real agression (fraud), simply because government says they are both illegal.

We still despise them

Who's "we"? The only people I despise are those who initiate force against others.

Re:Tell me you're kidding...

[Lord_Dweomer]

"I've seen it in Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston and New York. I've even seen it in places that you've never heard of, like Nampa, Idaho and Portsmouth, Rhode Island."

Yeah, where the hell is Idaho and Rhode Island?