2025-01-14 12:12:45 +01:00
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<html>
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<head>
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<title>Pablo here</title>
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<meta charset="utf-8">
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<meta viewport="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
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<link rel="stylesheet" href="../styles.css">
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</head>
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<body>
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<main>
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<h1>
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Hi, Pablo here
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</h1>
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<p><a href="../index.html">back to home</a></p>
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<hr>
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<section>
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<h2>A simple solution to spam</h2>
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<p>Spam is a problem that has plagued the Internet for decades already. Given a negligible cost to reach
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out, and easy access to some contact method, many annoying people will choose to mass bother all of us
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in hopes of striking a profit.
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</p>
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<p>
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2025-01-18 19:14:00 +01:00
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Different communication channels have tackled this problem in different ways. Centralized platforms such
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2025-01-14 12:12:45 +01:00
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as Twitter or Facebook can easily observe a user running an unreasonably high amount of comms and punish
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them for it. Open protocols like email have adopted DMARC, SPF and DKIM, and emails servers themselves
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might use techniques like machine learning to detect and throw away spam. Chat applications like
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telegram will show you a big, flashy red button that says "BLOCK AND REPORT" the moment someone writes
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to you out of the blue, implicitly acknowledging that they perfectly know most first-contacts happening
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in their kingdom are spam.
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</p>
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<p>
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These techniques have had some degree of success, but they are far from full eficacy. And some of them
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2025-01-18 19:14:00 +01:00
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have resulted in thrashing protocols (<a
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href="https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-twenty-three-years-i-have-thrown-in-the-towel-the-oligopoly-has-won.html">it
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happened to email, which has become notoriously unmanageable
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for individuals</a>), or creating pain-in-the-ass UX in other places.
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</p>
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<h3>The idea</h3>
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<p>
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So here's an idea (not mine at all) which solves spam big time: everytime someone wants to do the spammy
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action
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(send email, send message, connect, open chat, etc), ask them to pay. The amount is not really
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important. A cent will do. A cent of a cent will probably do as well.
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</p>
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<p>
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That's it, that's the idea.
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</p>
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<p>
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2025-01-18 19:14:00 +01:00
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A simple hypothetical example: I could open up my email inbox for anyone, but only accept their message
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<em>if they pay me</em>. With this, I would be able to keep myself open to contacts but also avoid the
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wild west of internet to drown my inbox. I would also protect myself from people who would try to send
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me a lovingly crafted, good old manual email, but only intending to catch my attention for their own
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purposes and not being up to putting any effort from their side.
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</p>
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<p>
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Why would that work? I don't think I need to explain it to you, it's simple and intuitive enough you're
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just realising: if a spammer needs to pay a cent everytime he shoots, he is going to run out of cents
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quite soon. Worst case scenario, he keeps spamming, but will become much more select with where he
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invests his time and resources (which probably isn't that far away from how normal people decide whether
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they should bother someone else with unsollicited contact) and whoever gets spammed at least gets a
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some compensation for it. Best case scenario, the spammer switches jobs, finds a better place in the
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world and we're all happier.
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</p>
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<p>
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Thus, introducing payments would bring down the noise. And then we could remove many of those weird UX
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quirks, design and engineering decisions we've been piling on for decades that have made some of our
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existing communication channels so much worse that they could have been.
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</p>
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<p>Besides the technological side of it, it could also make real people think twice before reaching out. If
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I'm a lazy bum going to send an email to some random guy who maintains an open source package but hasn't
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touched in 5 years, asking him if he's going to fix some issue, and I have zero intent to help, support,
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or contribute to the endeavor (I'm really just trying my luck), I'm probably not even willing to pay a
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buck for that. And he will probably be grateful about me not bothering him in such a selfish way. On
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the other hand, if I want to reach out to the lead singer of some indie band in my town because I want
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to hire his band for my friend's birthday, I really wouldn't mind paying that buck, or even five. And he
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will be very happy to get messages from people who are truly interested in their band (and prove it by
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paying). </p>
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<p>
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Finally, this pattern also gives the individual a choice: they can decide how much is it worth being
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bothered. Some freelancer who is out of work and desperately needs a gig, no matter what, will probably
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lower the price to get in touch with him heavily, potentially not charging at all. On the other hand, a
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busy business woman who has plenty of things going on in life might decide she isn't opening her inbox
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for less than a 1.000$. Don't like that? Too bad.
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</p>
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<p>
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Some people are already doing this. <a href="https://www.lopp.net">Jameson Lopp</a>, a very intelligent
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and prolific business man and engineer, publicly allows you to send him a mesage: but if you want it to
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be in his high priority queue, <a href="https://www.lopp.net/contact.php" target="_blank"
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rel="noopener noreferrer">you have to pay a 100$.</a> And I think it's great. Having this man waste
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a single minute of his day on stupid spam would be a terrible loss to humanity.
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</p>
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<h3>If it's so great, why is this not implemented everywhere?</h3>
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<p>
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I think there's a few reasons this hasn't been done before.
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</p>
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<p>
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Electronic payment systems have been archaic for decades. Technology has moved at an incredible pace for
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many decades, but the banking and finance industries, being corrupt oligopolies, have happily sat on
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their ass collecting bonuses and living the life. <a
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href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5EV-O0S5g4">Until Bitcoin came along, which changed
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things.</a> On this front, we're on the right path: there will be more and more solutions to easily
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apply this anti-spam pattern everywhere.
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</p>
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<p>I also think the mainstream morality ideas in much of the west have tried to suppress selfishness in
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extreme ways. I know a lot of people would feel plain bad and guilty pretending to charge just to be
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reached out, out of low self-steem and thinking someone might be pissed off about it (<em>"What do you
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mean I need to pay a dollar to contact you? Are you not going to help me? Don't you have a
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heart?"</em>).</p>
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<p>I really don't know what's the solution for this, if it has one. Maybe we could mail a copy of
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Atlas
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Shrugged</a> to the whole world? I will certainly keep lending my hardcover to anyone who wants to
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read it.
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</p>
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<p>
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Another reason this is not being done today, even though the idea is beautifully spreading outside of
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cypherpunk niche corners, is that the tooling is still not that good. Most people are not familiar with
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using Bitcoin in any of its forms, which is not helping. And we're missing good apps to handle the
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wrapping of contact details behind paywalls. I haven't set it up myself in this page because it would
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take time and effort I'm currently not willing to spend, and I know a thing or two on the topic! If you
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don't have ideas for setting up a startup, this would be a great service to develop. I would happily pay
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10% of the incoming money from these anti-spam paywalls if it meant I didn't have to wait a single
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minute maintaning it.
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</p>
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<p>If you want to look more into it, here are some interesting resources:</p>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="https://www.reacher.me/">https://www.reacher.me/</li></a>
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<li><a href="https://blog.lopp.net/how-to-create-bitcoin-email-paywall-with-btcpay/">How to Create a
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Bitcoin/Lightning Email Paywall with BTCPay, by Jameson Lopp</li></a>
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<li><a href="https://news.earn.com/monetize-your-gmail-inbox-with-21-co-ec1f9687956d">A blogpost
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presenting the (now defunct) earn.com service</li></a>
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</ul>
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<hr>
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<p><a href="../index.html">back to home</a></p>
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</section>
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</main>
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</html>
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