Pay to send email...

[bill at horne.net (Bill Horne)]

Anthony Gabrielson wrote:

>Hello,
>	I miss the days when the internet was more fun: 
>http://www.clickz.com/news/article.php/3581301
>
>I can't imagine paying to send email - thats nuts...
>
>Anthony
>_______________________________________________
>Discuss mailing list
>Discuss at blu.org
>http://olduvai.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>  
>
Anthony,

There are two ways to look at this:

1. It's AOL's attempt to create a "walled garden" for its users, and to 
charge an admission fee to anyone not affiliated with Time-Warner.
    If so, the lawyers will be trading briefs within a fews months and 
will work it out.

2. This is a de facto admission that the spammers have poluted the 
Internet to the point where people are/might be willing to pay extra to 
be rid of them.
    Since "Goodmail" - an oxymoron if ever I've seen one - charges "a 
fraction of a cent" for each email it allows through, this raises the 
ante above the level
    of the average spammer, and assures AOL/Time-Warner that it will now 
be dealing only with large media conglomerates that have deep pockets. It
    also means that your ISP will be expected to ante up for each email 
you send to an AOL address, and therefore your rates will go up.

I'd bet this is a trial balloon: if other ISP's block AOL-bound email, 
then AOL will back off. If they pay up, AOL will raise the rates until 
they don't, and back off from there. What it boils down to is that AOL 
is betting its user pool is valuable enough that everyone outside the 
walled garden will pay to get in: if they've gambled wisely, then it's a 
self-fullfilling prophecy and you can expect an ad campaign trumpeting 
the lack of spam on AOL. Time will tell.

FWIW. YMMV.

Bill

-- 
E. William Horne
William Warren Consulting
Computer and Network Installation & Service
http://www.billhorne.com/
Voice:	781 784-7287
Fax:	781 784-0951