
Possible solution to PG's frighteningly ambitious idea for email overload - unohoo
http://pranavdharma.com/2012/07/19/control-the-flow-of-your-inbound-messages-email/
======
ptbello
I think this is a brilliant idea, and someone will eventually do it.

Richard Branson already organises meetings where you donate a few thousands to
a charity of his liking in order to have access to a dinner and a chat with
him. Why wouldn't he add a few dollars to charity per email AND mitigate his
inbox problem a at he same time.

Also I love the idea of an automated system to adjust the asking price as
f(total unread messages)

------
larrys
I think this idea might have potential actually for non famous people. Besides
the market for famous people simply isn't that large and suffers anyway from
becoming impractical if it were successful. (Unless you raise the price per
email to an objectionable level).

But consider whether people would agree to receive email if they were paid per
message. All the emails would be pitches and the price paid for the message
would depend on a bidding system tailored to both the end user and the person
selling something (or the advertiser).

Arbitrary examples:

Car dealer wants to send you an email: .02 Supermarket: .04 Local plumber: .10
Life insurance salesman: .15 PC Mall .01

The idea being that people agree to accept and read spam (maybe you have to
click to show you read the message which would have to be only a certain
length) to get the money.

Add: While this sounds like opt in it's not. This is money per message. You
have to read the messages in order to collect the fee for reading.

Would a life insurance salesman pay .15 per recipient to know that his email
had a _good chance_ of being read? I think he would.

~~~
gee_totes
As an advertiser, why would I pay potential consumers to read my ads? I would
rather spend that money on an agency that is going to make people _want_ to
read my ads.

~~~
larrys
"why would I pay potential consumers to read my ads?"

To get them to take action. You can have a click here in an email.

"I would rather spend that money on an agency"

"That" - You can do that as well and should.

This is not choice of one or the other. Companies spends money on advertising.
But they also spend money on events necessary to inform and of course generate
publicity.

------
larrys
There are many things that I like about this idea. But who benefits from this?
I don't think the overloaded. I think the person selling.

But let's take a use examples.

In the case of someone like Fred Wilson, he will return your email if it is
something that he is interested in [2] and not return it if he isn't
interested. Even if you are on his "A or B" list. (And even if you are on his
A list he won't necessarily take the time to read or understand your entire
email.[1])

So your idea seems to be "Fred will know that I (a nobody) have paid .50c or
$5 and therefore be more likely to read my email. After all you are not
pitching this idea as a replacement, merely an additional way to get someone's
attention. The price has to be below other methods (a billboard on the 101) or
express mail.

So this is not going to solve the email problem of an important person. It's
only going to put certain email, and this is important, hopefully with a
better chance of getting read.

The problem is it really doesn't solve any problem for Fred. He will still get
a shitload of email. All he will see is that 15 or 20 messages a day people
decided to pay to have him see their message. So this is really a benefit to
the sender not to the recipient (like Fred anyway).

[1] I've gotten responses in 5 minutes and in 5 hours and I've gotten no
response. Frequent occurrence. Generally if you don't get a response w/i 24
hours you aren't going to get a response because it's not something he wants
to deal with.

[2] In order to even begin to approach doing an idea like this you would have
to see the mail flow of a power user like Fred. My guess is that he gets so
many emails of so many purposes (companies he's funded asking questions,
people he has met, pitches, Michael Bloomberg, other VC's) that it would
simply not be practical to begin to give out an email address or post an
address where people have to pay to email him.

~~~
unohoo
Well, fred could determine what the worth of his time is -- which obviously is
not $5. >>The problem is it really doesn't solve any problem for Fred. He will
still get a shitload of email. Yes, but if he redirects all unsolicited,
inbound requests through such a service, then it might make a small dent in
his inbox (how small/big hard to say, but even if it is a 1-5% improvement,
its huge).

~~~
larrys
"redirects all unsolicited, inbound requests through such a service"

How does he determine that the mail is "unsolicited" exactly? His email
address is already out there in a zillion places. What do you suggest he do
email everyone who has his email address and reject all mail to the old
address? Or that he create a white list? Not going to happen it would take to
much time to set that up from scratch.

~~~
unohoo
mention to his audience that he will entertain unsolicited inbound mail only
through such a service (not guaranteeing a response, but higher probablity
that he will read). he of course cant go removing his email from all the
existing places, but instead going fwd try to use such a service as his
incoming channel for unsolicited, inbound msgs.

------
asparagui
Your post advocates a

( ) technical ( ) legislative (x) market-based ( ) vigilante

approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work.
(One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may
have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal
law was passed.)

( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses ( ) Mailing lists
and other legitimate email uses would be affected (x) No one will be able to
find the guy or collect the money ( ) It is defenseless against brute force
attacks ( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it (
) Users of email will not put up with it ( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it ( ) Requires too much cooperation from
spammers (x) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once (x)
Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential
employers ( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists ( )
Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it (x) Lack of centrally controlling authority
for email ( ) Open relays in foreign countries ( ) Ease of searching tiny
alphanumeric address space of all email addresses ( ) Asshats ( )
Jurisdictional problems (x) Unpopularity of weird new taxes ( ) Public
reluctance to accept weird new forms of money ( ) Huge existing software
investment in SMTP ( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack (
) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email ( ) Armies of
worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes ( ) Eternal arms race involved
in all filtering approaches ( ) Extreme profitability of spam ( ) Joe jobs
and/or identity theft ( ) Technically illiterate politicians ( ) Extreme
stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers ( ) Dishonesty
on the part of spammers themselves ( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by
client filtering ( ) Outlook

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been
shown practical ( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable ( ) SMTP
headers should not be the subject of legislation ( ) Blacklists suck ( )
Whitelists suck ( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being
censored ( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card
fraud ( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks ( )
Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually (x) Sending email should be
free ( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers? ( ) Incompatiblity
with open source or open source licenses ( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to
solve the problem ( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome ( ) I
don't want the government reading my email ( ) Killing them that way is not
slow and painful enough

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

(x) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work. ( ) This is a stupid idea,
and you're a stupid person for suggesting it. ( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going
to find out where you live and burn your house down!

~~~
marcamillion
You are totally off the mark with this response. As people have said, this is
not a suggestion for a replacement of email.

I imagine some central hub that manages the protocol used to send messages
over the network. In order for you to get on the network you have to enter
some identifiable information - as both the sender and receiver. Perhaps,
including credit card information.

Once you get credit card information, everybody buys credits and they use that
credit to send messages to "important" people.

This could totally work if you get a few "high profile" people to try it out
and iron out the kinks. If people like PG, Arrington, MG, etc. actually use it
and like it....it will likely be a success.

~~~
sp332
I think that would encourage spam. Currently people don't email "important"
people because they think it would get lost in the mass of other emails. But
if you pay a few cents to get an important person's attention, it looks a lot
more attractive.

------
omegant
Surely somebody already said this and there are thousand of reasons of why it
won´t work, but what about an inbox only allowed by recommendation. Only the
people you already have in your contacts can give access to your inbox (or at
least to the important inbox). All the non recommended mail could go to a bulk
inbox, just checked now and then(not your workhorse inbox). That way you make
the email work just as society works, some one you know introduces you to the
people you want/need to know. Maybe it isn´t enough filter for PG, but could
help to less busy people keep the inbox less crowded.

~~~
Dylan16807
So basically facebook email but with more emphasis on actually telling the
user that the bulk inbox exists.

------
rheide
I think this could work, if implemented as part of the current e-mail system.
You could add a server that intercepts e-mails and if the user is not on the
white list, or hasn't paid/registered for a particular pay service, then it
could bounce the e-mail with a notice telling the sender to sign up. That
would solve the initial problem of not having any users as well.

~~~
rfugger
I think that was exactly the idea.

------
dpatru
Such a scheme would solve the problem of getting unsolicited, unimportant
email. But I suspect that these kinds of messages are not the problem. The
problem is that busy people are just getting too much good quality email.
People are just overloaded: they have too many demands on their time, their
energy, and their money. Email overload is part of the larger problem of too
little margin.

Attaching prices to emails could help a person that is too busy _if the
recipient had to pay._ A person has a limited amount of time and energy during
a day to do email. If prices were attached to emails, it might be easier to
recognize the cost of an email. Prices might help the email user to ask
questions like:

"If I read and respond to this email, this will consume 10% of email budget
for the day. Is it worth it?"

"This daily email that I'm getting from X is consuming 5% of my total email
budget for the month. Is this the best use of my resources?"

"Where is my email budget going?"

------
PetroFeed
This could be made as a third party system where you direct your email
through. An auto-response could be sent to emails on the "pay list" with
instructions on how to complete the delivery of the message.

The idea is at least easy enough to setup and give it a try...

------
ziadbc
Some friends and I actually pitched this idea to YC and got an interview a few
years ago. We didn't get in.

Part of the issue is as soon as you describe this idea one of the thoughts
people will have 'so you want to pay me for receiving spam.'

Twitter is an example of an 'alternative inbox' but the hard nut to crack is
to get enough people using a system like it in lieu of email. If that is not
achieved, all you end up with is two inboxes with a bunch of junk in them, or
at a minimum the same amount of email you always got.

------
crazygringo
If this is just for famous people...

The problem is, there's no relation between value of the message to famous
person, and price someone else is willing to pay to send it.

Just because someone's willing to pay $100 for someone important to read their
message, doesn't mean their message is any more valuable to that person than
someone not willing to pay money, or willing to pay only $5. Someone important
isn't going to care about the money.

------
pwpwp
Or use hashcash instead of real money <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash>

------
damoe
The problem is, there already is a simple to raise the transaction cost of
initial communication. You write on your web site "please snail mail my
agent/representative at xxx." If I really want to talk to the person I'll do
that. What types of communication beneficial to the recipient would this leave
out?

------
astrodust
The only solution is filtering. If your email client could read, organize, and
prioritize your email according to rules you've set and behavior it's
observed, the problem _is_ solved.

Email is just a transport mechanism for messages. The content and presentation
thereof is where the problem lies, not the exchange.

------
jmduke
Rather than comment or criticize the idea as a whole, there's one issue that
stands out to me --

Read receipts are a terrible idea, and 'percentage read' is also a terrible
idea. What's to stop people from getting an assistant to click through each
message -- or, more likely, download a script that does the same?

~~~
patrickod
Personally I think read receipts on their own per message are not a bad idea
but I do agree that there shouldn't be an incentive for recipients to game the
system by falsely marking messages as read. It should be optional. Not all
messages need to have receipts. Maybe you should charge for that as well?

------
jpatte
Pretty girls in online dating websites face a similar problem : their inbox is
basically full of generic "hello" messages from guys hoping to reach them. I
wonder if this solution - the more popular the girl is, the more you have to
pay to contact her - would work on the dating scene ?

------
alexknowshtml
A friend of mine built this:

<https://vipbox.heroku.com/r38y>

------
calvinlough
It would be interesting if you only had to pay if you didn't get a response.

------
dools
This is fundamentally what LinkedIn has done with InMail right? If you pay
LinkedIn then you can send an InMail to someone famous/important etc. without
being connected to them.

------
delinquentme
" billion dollar frighteningly ambitious idea " ... solved with an assistant?
Graham likes it because he groks email related services.

