Re: domain name list

From: Brad Jensen <brad_at_elstore.com>
Date: Wed 02 Aug 2000 11:50:16 -0500

JIM REARDON <jim_at_amusive.com> WROTE:
> Instead of shifting the costs of your marketing onto
> others (and, as previously mentioned, possibly
> breaking a law in doing so) -- you take responsibility
> for your marketing and pay for it yourself. There is
> no reason I should pay the outrageous amounts of
> bandwidth I have to pay for because people, exactly
> like you, think they deserve a free ride.

Interesting arguments.

1. The cost of one additional email to a person in the
USA who is not paying for connect time is zilch. In any
case, an email takes half a second or less of connect
time.

2. Every form of advertising is paid for by the
listener. The listeners who purchase products pay for
the advertising to everyone who listens to, watches, or
reads the medium that contains the ads. In some
mediums, such as magazines and public radio, people
either pay for the vehicle directly, or through taxes,
or tax advantages. The postal service subsidizes
periodical postal rates, and even book rates for
shipping.

3.While the illusion of 'free radio' pleases the ego of
the listener, there is nothing particularly ethical or
moral in this. It's an appeal to the greed of the
listener.

4. The guy who runs the opt-in lists is selling the
attention of his readers. He's buying that attention by
giving them a list they find interesting. In many
cases, the service provider is taking advantage of the
list manager, by giving him the service of broadcasting
the list, but none of the ad revenue. Where is the
ethics of that?

Well, the answer is twofold. A willing transaction of
value is the key, along with an implied interest in new
information.

Direct mail polices itself because of the cost. No one
can stay in business advertising to people who find no
value in the proposition. The problem with the internet
is that there are new people willing to advertize to
everyone and bear the cost for a while.

The people who are charing so outrageously for
advertising are partially responsible for this. People
who know what the internet costs of transmission are,
reasonably conclude that it is more cost-effective to
advertise to everyone at a low cost than a small target
at an outlandish cost. As internet advertising costs
become more reasonable, the economics will reduce the
totally-untargeted spam.

All advertising is spam, it's just some advertising is
less spamlike than others, in the eye of the beholder.

Brad Jensen brad_at_elstore.com
President
Electronic Storage Corporation Tulsa OK USA
918-664-7276
LaserVault Report Retrieval & Data Mining
www.Laservault.com




Received on Wed Aug 02 2000 - 11:50:16 CDT