In yesterday's post I linked to an article that profiles a small-time spammer in Louisiana. If we read between the lines, we can see in the article some very, very good news about spam.
Here's a quote:
Fox's days of carefree spamming are past, and so is the good money. She worries that bankruptcy is just around the corner and blames the Internet companies -- who have become more adept at filtering out spam.
So, a small-time spammer is about to go out of business. Sounds like small-time news, doesn't it? But wait. There comes a time in every industry where smaller competitors can no longer make it. The industry goes through a phase of consolidation, where mergers happen, and in the end there are only a relatively small number of large companies remaining. Is this what's happening in the spam business? If it is, then that's good news for two reasons: First, consolidation happens so that costs can be cut through economies of scale. Since spammers already have low costs, how much can consolidation help in cutting costs? My guess is that it can't. So that's good news: spamming may be becoming unprofitable. Second, if the spam industry consolidates down into a relatively small number of spam companies, that means fewer targets for law enforcement.
This is good news indeed.
Posted by Doug Sauder at December 16, 2003 07:22 AM