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This page contains all of the posts and discussion on MemeStreams referencing the following web page: Apres Spam. You can find discussions on MemeStreams as you surf the web, even if you aren't a MemeStreams member, using the Threads Bookmarklet.

Apres Spam
by Jeremy at 9:20 pm EDT, Oct 2, 2003

A main complaint of email users is that they have to waste time every day deleting spam messages from the servers on which they lease their little online garden plots -- but such deleting is only necessary because the industry has its head screwed on backwards.
In our universe (right here, right now), data storage is dirt cheap and getting cheaper. Disk storage per bit is in effect too cheap to meter, so no one should have to waste time deleting anything, unless he feels like it.
No one should ever have to do anything with a mail message except ignore it, read it, or read and respond.
When I see people "cleaning up" their mail files, faithfully stuffing each message into a folder or otherwise file-clerking for a machine, acting as their computer's loyal (albeit menial) employee, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. (Laugh is usually the right answer.)

Software should be doing this for you. That's why software exists.

It's funny. It's sad. It's true. It's David Gerlenter on spam.

Sharing David's observations with system administrators seems to have little effect on the situation. Users seem to be stymied by the fact that IT and computer science are now completely unrelated fields of study and lines of work.

It boggles the mind, and yet remains somehow entirely unsurprising, that large organizations are knowingly paying skilled professionals to spend valuable time each day ensuring that their mail boxes at no time consume more than ten cents worth of online storage space. If, at any time of the day or night, the accumulation of one's meager and modest intellectual efforts should by some action at a distance happen to consume more than a dime's worth of the world's precious disk space, it should be obvious that the only sensible response -- indeed, perhaps the only humane response -- is to immediately relocate the offending individual to the electronic equivalent of solitary confinement until this monstrous demonstration of conspicuous consumption has been remedied by a prompt eradication of the least invaluable intellectual property currently in one's possession. In order that others may learn well the lesson of this most egregious abrogation of the well-known compact regarding the tragedy of the Common Internet File Server, a stern warning will be issued to all those who would seek to conduct business with the temporarily incarcerated. It is hoped that such proactive measures will encourage all fine, upstanding free speakers to watch what they say and mind their own electronic business.

RE: Apres Spam
by Decius at 7:15 am EDT, Oct 3, 2003

Jeremy wrote:
] A main complaint of email users is that they have to
] waste time every day deleting spam messages from the
] servers on which they lease their little online garden plots
] -- but such deleting is only necessary because the industry
] has its head screwed on backwards.

Yes, this makes sense. Disk space should be available infinitely, particularly in a work context. Old email is very useful data at work. This is worth the expense.

On the other hand, I never get spam at work. I haven't gotten spam at work in years. I dunno if thats because I change jobs too often, or because my work email never gets used in a context where it can become available to spammers, or because if it did, someone would set up filters.

I get spam at home. At home I don't always have infinite disk space, and old email does not seem nearly as useful. But its not so much the cleaning up disk space thats the concern. The concern is that when you have 25 - 50 spams per legitimate email, its often easy to not SEE the emails that matter. The concern is that you don't always want to reply to everything you've gotten in your inbox, but if you leave it will get buried. The problem isn't that you have to delete a couple emails. The problem is that your email account becomes unusable, "spammed out." And as your email account IS your identity on the internet, you've got to change your identity. Once that new identity is established, the spam will start to trickle in again, and over the course of a few years the process repeats itself. Its like you are permanently in the witness protection program to avoid aggressive marketing. Thats why it pisses me off. I really don't feel the same way about paper spam. Its just not as annoying, mostly because its never forced me to move.