No, I’m not talking about sites that feature pornography or other subjects that may be considered offensive to large segments of the population. Although the creators of these sites often figure very prominently in the schemes I will be talking about.
Although some old-time internet purists probably still lament any commercialization of the internet whatsoever, I do not feel that way at all. That is despite the fact that I am somewhat of an old-timer myself, in the sense that I was using the internet back in the early 1980’s due to my former occupation at a technology company.
In fact, I love the convenience of using the internet to make purchases and research products and services I am considering. I even run an internet business or two myself and enjoy it more than any other job I have ever had.
What I am talking about are the low-life individuals out there that take commercialization of the internet to new levels. And I’m not just talking about spam here (more on that later).
Just about everyone with an e-mail address is well aware of the spam problem. Most of the greed-crazed spammers out there are sending millions of spam messages and sending it to literally every e-mail address they can get their hands on.
If you have ever bought anything as the result of a spam message that you received out of the blue from someone you did not know and had never heard of, you are not going to like what I have to say next.
Spammers make their money because of one time-tested and utterly reliable human trait: Gullibility. Yes, that is the single, limitless fuel that powers the mighty spam machine.
Spammers send millions of spam messages because the response they receive is so poor in terms of what might be expected for a legitimate direct marketing campaign. But with millions of spam messages being sent, even a tiny percentage of recipients who actually make a purchase make for a nice profit.
Sending spam does not involve printing, envelope stuffing and postage fees. That means it can be very cheap to send out millions of spam messages, and that is why it is well worth the spammer’s effort to come up with a brief spam e-mail message and simply instruct a computer to send it out to a few million e-mail addresses.
Among these millions of e-mail recipients are enough gullible individuals that will actually send money to the spammers for whatever it is they are selling.
That is why spam continues to be a problem. If nobody was gullible enough to send spammers money in response to their lame offers, spam would come to an end.
If you have actually ever purchased anything in response to a spam message you have received, please do the rest of us a favor by never doing it again. Millions of e-mail users will thank you.
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