Why would they think that anyone would ever buy anything from an unsolicited email? Do you know anyone who's ever looked at a piece of spam and gone, "Hey, you know? I could really use a larger penis!" Or "Boy, I wish I had one of those crappy closed-circuit cameras for when hot babes unexpectedly drop by the house."
As a biologist, I would think that spam would breed itself out by natural selection. It's a waste of their time and effort to write and send these emails (even if they are automatically sent by spamming programs of some kind), so unless some schmuck is actually buying things from them, they're wasting money on the emails.
It costs almost nothing to spam people, so you only need one fool to send you money, and there are plenty of fools. Some poor sad bloke will get his 5,000th penis enlargement message and think that perhaps he should give it a go. Someone else who's hard up will think perhaps they really can make big money working from home. And every time there's a spammer somewhere grinning and sending another five million e-mails.
Freekee asked why anyone thought he'd buy something. The truth is that the spammer doesn't have to think. He just has to send his message to enough addresses. Thinking about which addresses are worth sending the message to just wastes time that could be spent on sending even more spam: it pays the spammer to be stupid.
i was wondering why he was just mentioning this now~ i've been deluged for a couple of years, now, but i was surprised the first time it happened. even at university, the spammers are getting through much more these days. the future is bleak.
Spammers are increasingly invasive, George "W" and his ilk are in charge of the government, and my nice liberal church is in danger of moving to the conservative side. Moan!
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chiming
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Date: 2005-04-16 04:10 pm (UTC)From:As a biologist, I would think that spam would breed itself out by natural selection. It's a waste of their time and effort to write and send these emails (even if they are automatically sent by spamming programs of some kind), so unless some schmuck is actually buying things from them, they're wasting money on the emails.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-16 05:12 pm (UTC)From:Freekee asked why anyone thought he'd buy something. The truth is that the spammer doesn't have to think. He just has to send his message to enough addresses. Thinking about which addresses are worth sending the message to just wastes time that could be spent on sending even more spam: it pays the spammer to be stupid.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-16 04:48 pm (UTC)From:you're all cursy and stuff!
::hides::
no subject
Date: 2005-04-16 05:14 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2005-04-16 05:25 pm (UTC)From:i've been deluged for a couple of years, now,
but i was surprised the first time it happened.
even at university, the spammers are getting through
much more these days. the future is bleak.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-16 05:42 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2005-04-17 02:49 pm (UTC)From:But I can set up a filter, and use the lj address only for lj comments.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-16 06:45 pm (UTC)From: