Emails and social media should cost money. Not a lot. Maybe $1 to send 10000 messages. Cheap enough that any legitimate user can pay. Too expensive for spammers. It would also end all the "email notification" noise, and make it impossible to anonymously AstroTurf opinions on social media.
"If something is free, you are the product." – Somebody smarter than me
It was a big mistake, when 20 odd years ago, we all gobbled up free stuff on the internet, thinking this was all the democratisation of information.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v3... This perhaps?
You cannot expect an organisation to regulate that from which it makes profit.
Or worse - you are the raw materials
By somebody much smarter than me is.gd/nL9jEY
A massive mistake newspapers made in the early days was being free to read on the net. Why would you give away a product that people have happily paid for since the dawn of time?
Social media (SM) is the equivalent of the wild west in the internet 25 years ago or more. My thoughts are each SM account has to be identified against a real person and address. I agree with Russ with regard sending emails should invoke costs.
But then I have received "Nigerian millionaire" scam letters in the post - with a real stamp on. And spam phone calls do cost money. 🤷♂️
Bill Gates floated this idea about 20 years ago. Unfortunately it never took off.
I pay for my email. This gives me complete control over blacklists, whitelists and extensive & flexible filtering systems. It also gives me multiple mailboxes which has been useful occasionally. I doubt that I get one spam message a month, so I consider it money well spent.
Out of interest, which email provider do you use? I've been thinking of doing the same.
Hover.com is who I use.
Thanks