CNN is reporting that Microsoft has come up with a scheme to have users pay money to send email as a way to discourage spammers. That should come as no surprise, since the “killer app” of the Internet has gone so long without Microsoft getting any money out of it. But Microsoft is also claiming that their idea wouldn’t actually generate revenue for them because you could earn “email credits” by, for instance, solving a simple math problem, thus verifying your earnest interest in sending an email.
Not only is this idea one of the dumbest I’ve ever heard, but it’s one of the dumbest I’ve ever heard (oops, wrote myself into a hyperbolic corner there). The idea that somehow Microsoft is proposing this and not going to make money on it in one way or another is ridiculous. Surely there will be ads on the web pages with the credit-generating math problems or something of the sort. Or there will be a “float” that Microsoft can take advantage of in some way, or a micro-fee that you’ll have to pay just to get the credits. Something. The invisible hand just doesn’t work the way that Microsoft claims it does.
I have a better idea: let’s implement a system whereby every time you send an email it costs you a penny, but each time you receive an email you earn a penny. Not only would that discourage spammers, but it would discourage all sorts of those jokes and pron-lite that people send around on Fridays. And it would actually encourage people to engage in dialog! People who routinely didn’t respond to emails would run up a debt, and their credit rating would be ruined! Or I suppose we might could just use whuffie and everyone could have a whuffie filter on their email so that non-responders would automatically go to the spam folder…