Spam vs. Junk Mail
Some people equate spam and junk mail, and are equally annoyed by both. There are even those people that are more annoyed by junk mail than they are by spam. In some countries, marketers have many more restrictions on sending bulk mail than we do in the U.S.
But, I don’t see them as being equivalent.
I think that the most mail I’ve ever received on a single day is maybe 20 pieces of mail. Direct mail, or “junk mail” as it is sometimes popularly called, tends to be finite. Maybe some people receive much more mail than I do, but, judging at least from people I’ve known, most people seem to receive about the same as I do.
And, you can quickly go through them and toss them. Some you actually look at because it may be something of interest to you. Other things you can quickly identify as junk and throw them away.
I think I would be happy if I only received 20 spam messages a day. Annoyed, but happier than I am now.
The thing is that direct mail costs money. So the senders are highly motivated to target their mailings to people that are most likely to respond to their offers. As such, they are selective about to whom they send their mailings.
Spam, on the other hand, is far, far less costly for senders. The senders’ emphasis is generally on quantity rather than quality. They are looking for as many eMail addresses as they can get their hands on because the cost of distribution is so low. Because of that, they only need a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent in order to generate a profit.
So, spam mailings are typically not targeted. Thus, women will receive spam messages selling “male enhancement” pills and men will receive offers for feminine products. And so on.
On some days, I’ve gotten as many as 1,000 spam messages. And that does not include the spam messages I never see because they were blocked by my mail server’s spam filters. Those are just the messages that make it through!
On a typical day, however, I get about 200 spam messages.
Going through all that is time consuming, and often it interferes with the deliver of legitimate eMail messages. It’s far too easy to accidentally trash a “real” eMail from someone because it was lost in a batch of incoming spam messages.
“Junk mail” has never been a problem like that, and I am doubtful that it ever would be, unless the Post Office were to start offering free mail delivery, which is not likely.
Would spam be better if it was more targeted? Maybe? But, even there, you could still get a boatload of spam messages simply because there would be many more prospective sellers out there wanting to sell you something that may interest you. You don’t have that with junk mail because fewer businesses can afford to send to everyone that might be interested in their product, whereas it could be quite inexpensive to send an eMail to everyone that might be interested in a product.
So, I don’t think you’ll ever really see a day when spam and junk mail are on a parity. The only way I can foresee that happening is if you had to pay some kind of virtual postage to send an eMail. But, I don’t think that’s something any of us want!
I get really annoyed by junk mail for some reason. Perhaps even more annoyed that I should be. But I am always perplexed by why I would want to buy a knock-off Rolex watch or something like that from a shady online source in the first place. And at the same time, I’m forced to trawl through the junk mail folder in case of something important slipping there.