E-Dribble

Take spam, for instance.

The new thing?  Sending you an email with no body to it, just an .mp3 file with an innocuous name, like “allforone.mp3″.  That’s all you get.  You have to listen to the mp3 file to realize that it’s actually a voice telling you about a can’t-lose stock.  Then, you have to continue listening to retrieve all of the pertinent information, so you can purchase the company’s stock.  After that has happened on a large scale, the entity that sent these emails sells their stock in this company at it’s new inflated value and leaves you holding the bag.

You know what?  If you opened that email, listened to that mp3 and then bought that stock, you deserve to be holding the bag.

Why?Well, because your stupidity is the reason we all have to put up with these ridiculous emails in the first place.  We weren’t dumb enough to believe that a lady dying of cancer in Africa wants to share $3 MIL with us because she thinks we’re trustworthy.  We didn’t purchase stock based on an mp3 file sent to us without wondering what kind of company would send unsolicited audio files out to promote a stock sale.

You are the reason that 90% of mail sent through Al Gore’s internet is spam.  You are the reason that companies have to double and triple server resources in an attempt to handle the flood of junk mail.  They don’t do it to protect you.  They do it because of the people that came before you and bought that stock or shared their bank information with the wife of a prince that was being held captive in New Orleans.

Don’t fret! I can solve this problem:

We should disable all of our spam filters across the great wide web.  Then, we should allow any person that has the inclination the chance to buy that stock or send the necessary bank account information to the kind widow in Nigeria.  After they have paid their stupidity tax, chances are that they will no longer be able to afford an internet connection.  If they can by some stroke of luck afford one, chances are great that they will not be likely to purchase another stock based on an audio file sent to them with the name of the latest pop star as the title.

This will leave us with an entire e-society that is no longer too stupid to use e-mail.  As a whole, we will know that we shouldn’t share personal information with others on the web that ask for it.  We will be too savvy to make life altering investments based on a random and unsolicited email in our inbox.  The junk mail will then reap a 0% return for the guy sending the spam.

Problem solved. Spam exists because it works.  If it quit working, our problem would be solved.

Darwin didn’t grade on a curve.