Comments on: Is Pay Email the Solution to Inbox Overload?

By: Aarathy

Aarathy — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:28:18 +0000

I haven’t had such problems in the past few years. I think Inbox Management is a lot easier for me these days as I use a pretty Cool Email Management software Taroby http://www.taroby.com
Hope it will come in handy for you as well. Do check it out!

By: Bruce

Bruce — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:53:49 +0000

It simply wouldn’t work even if the architecture was adopted. People would simply start communicating with other messaging systems that would bypass the fee. A fee would probably kill the standard email architecture faster than the spam has.

By: Alec

Alec — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:40:05 +0000

totally agreed. micropayment service would be counter-productive. However, a paid email ARCHIVING service… that is a different story :P

http://blog.sonian.com/bid/45123/Google-s-Postini-Experiences-Outages-Is-it-Time-to-Start-Paying

By: Blake

Blake — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:21:13 +0000

Hmmm… Perhaps the reason that Mr. Dvorak thinks people are ignoring his emails is because they actually are…? Just thinking out loud. However, I agree that with a little bit of self-discipline and preparation, spam management is a relatively painless process. I, too, have email accounts that I “give away” on the internet and then rarely, if ever, actually check. Meanwhile, my active email addresses are given out with care and remain relatively spam-free.

Perhaps Mr. Dvorak needs to work smarter and not harder. I wonder if the KISS principle comes to mind: Keep It Simple, Stupid, or Keep It Short & Sweet, or whatever translation floats your boat.

By: Sirius Lee

Sirius Lee — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:53:33 +0000

@brianm has it right. If it’s charged for, someone will come up with an alternative. Or, looking at the issue a different way, if there was a real need, it would have been met already. If there was a way Google or Microsoft or Facebook could earn money from email, they would. They don’t, so there isn’t.

Mr Dvorak’s solution is to change email address and inform those he knows he needs to communicate with that his email address has changed. Everyone else will catch up sooner or later. It’s not the most convenient solution – similar to what a business has to do if it moves premises or changes phone number – but turning the email system upside down to have Mr Dvorak avoid a little inconvenience seems like the tail wagging the dog. You don’t hear Bill Gates or Larry Ellison whining on and I’d guess their inboxes are pretty bloated.

By: Mister Hose Job

Mister Hose Job — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:34:52 +0000

Email has turned into a pathetic time hole. No one is interested in PAYING for better email when the one they have is utterly broken. It’s easier to setup adjunct accounts that allow forwarded mail from a master inbox to another. If someone is in your address book, then their mail gets forwarded to your private box which takes priority. Other adjunct boxes can offer out of office replies, etc., etc. If you have time to kill, you can fan through the phalanx of junk in the sub-boxes deciding which messages deserve a reply. If that won’t work, then give up email for a year like I did. I just let the inbox pile higher and higher until I had over 48,000 messages of junk, jokes, etc. Who cares?

By: Greg Baryza

Greg Baryza — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:16:33 +0000

I’m going to send him a letter indicating what a bogon emitter he is … if only I can find a stamp … and an envelope.

By: Willian

Willian — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:03:50 +0000

Well, for now I’m happy with Gmail and Thunderbird. Gmail for blocking spam and Thunderbird for having such great filter possibles: it’s marks “important” when sender is from work and mark “danger” when is my mother-in-law :D

By: Dan Desjardins

Dan Desjardins — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:47:21 +0000

Though I have not read his proposal I believe Dvorak is correct. The only way to make it succeed is to support absolutely NO exceptions to the rule of “pay per email.” Dvoraks proposal is one that is very simply designed to improve the signal to noise ratio on the internet. There will still be spam – but a lot less of it. If we set up non-paid white lists (as others have suggested) or any other exceptions (read these as “loop holes”) then they will be exploited to the maximum and likely render the plan completely useless – just like the Can-Spam act (what a friggin joke the proves how powerless congress is against forces they do not and can not understand).
Everyone pays a penny per email. It will significantly reduce spam and a lot of email that really didn’t need to be sent anyway!

By: brianm

brianm — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:01:47 +0000

About as daft an idea as you can get why:
email runs acrss the internet, force people to pay and an alternative service wil pop up.

Secondly not all unkown mail is unwanted, for example enquiries about a product, tech support etc etc. Imagine you have a product problem and you have to pay to contact your supplier (if they don;t respond – see a new scam coming up there)

The bulk of mail is created by a very few individuals, if law enforcement got off its proverbial fat a**** they could close these operators down.