Re: Spammers and web hosting

I don't think that involves the question at all...Rachel was asking
about being treated rudely when reporting spam.  :)

--- Scott Piegdon <scott(at)hyperwebdesign.com> wrote:
>     If you actually sit down and think about it, there is
> absolutely nothing
> wrong with Spam!  The simple concept of direct mail has been going
> on for
> years.  

I see your point about direct mail, and that's a simple given in a
world of advertising.  HOWEVER!  There is indeed something wrong with
spam.

Besides being a nasty lunch "meat,"

1:  spam takes up valuable space on servers.  for anyone who relies
on speed for their website, each piece of spam takes memory resources
that could instead be used for processing web requests and possibly
earning money for the server owner.

2:  Spam must be downloaded to be read.  For those of us in the US,
it's a minor inconvenience.  For those elsewhere in the world, people
must pay for e-mail usage either by time used to download messages or
by space used on the server or both!  A minor inconvenience for me
becomes a costly expense for someone in the Czech Republic who is
trying to keep in touch with relatives in Poland.

3:  Spam is costly to the recipients, not the sender.  In direct
mail, the cost is covered by the sender in postal, printing and
design fees.


> The Internet was formed, to allow people to communicate
> more effectively, and I feel not only did it do that, but it can be
> a tremendous resource for our future!

Exactly.  Communication and the sharing of resources are the primary
reasons behind the advent of the Internet, NOT the love of money and
the selfless promoting of advertising.  What was supposed to be the
free exchange of information has become a costly expense for ISP's
and users alike.

You might say that spam supplies me with information.  HOWEVER it is
information I did not request and in some cases, do not want at all. 
Sorry, but I don't care to get adverts for porn sites in my e-mail. 
If I want smut, I'll go surfing on my own or buy a book of erotica. 
I also don't care to know how I can cheat the gov't on my taxes, make
a "black box" for free cable, get a driver's license that can never
be revoked, apply for a merchant account, buy a CD with millions of
"filtered" e-mail addresses so I can spam others, you get the idea.

Spam is also a negative way to promote your business and not as
profitable.  Say 2% of your recipients respond to your spam and
purchase your product (I think the real stat is somewhere around .1%)
 Send 1 million e-mails, that's a 20,000 person response, yes, but
that's also 980,000 wasted e-mails.  Out of those 20,000 people,
let's say 5% purchase your product.  This gives you 1,000 purchases.

Is spam worth the black mark on your internet presence?  .001% of
your customers buy your product.  That's not a number to be proud of.

Business needs to advertise to survive.  That's a given.  I don't
feel that spam is a positive way to advertise.  Create a banner ad
and place it on related interest web sites.  Buy media ads
(newspaper, magazine, TV, radio).  There is also direct calling
(while also annoying, it's a viable alternative.)  The above are
paper-free (with the exception of Newspaper and magazine ads, but you
reach a better targeted market of readers and people *do* recycle).

Just my thoughts...
--skb
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