Date: Sat, 8 Aug 1998 23:57:56 +0100
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-----------> This message was posted to the ONLINE-NEWS list. <-----------
Replies to Don Taylor and to Xerxes follow:
> From: 'Doc' Don Taylor [mailto:docdon@pobox.com]
> Sent: Saturday, August 08, 1998 12:56 PM
> I think one flaw of the study as reported is that it presumes people
> sit idly by waiting for pages to load. By this standard people also
> presumably spend a lot of time waiting for:
>
> o Their computer to boot up
> o Their email to be retrieved
> o Their email to be sent
Don. Are you using Win95 on a 386? If so, it would explain the first item on
your list. I've never had to wait nine minutes for any of those things. As
for the other two items, they aren't comparable to webpages. The average
user can send or retrieve 100 to 400 emails within nine minutes, which is
far more than the number of webpages that the user will be waiting for
during that time.
> I don't know about everyone else, but I don't sit here waiting while a
> web page loads. Most often I review email and visit web sites during the
> same time period. So while a page is loading, I pop over to my email
> program (Eudora) and read some mail. I do that repeatedly throughout the
> day, consequently I doubt I spend nine minutes waiting even in a month. I
> find similar ways to occupy myself during the other periods of "potential
> wait".
I stand on my head while waiting webpages to download. The resulting
dizziness makes me not mind the wait. Indeed, many overly-wrought graphics
actually look even better as I pass out.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xerxes [mailto:xerxes@clark.net]
> Sent: Saturday, August 08, 1998 1:35 PM
> Vin says, ...in part:
>
> >Not long ago, we discussed surveys that estimated the amount of time the
> >average Internet user spent daily deleting spams. Many of these
> surveys then
> >converted that wasted time into the equivalent wage-hours and
> approximated
> >the amount of dollars spams cause users worldwide to waste each year. The
> >results were in the high hundreds of millions to billions of dollars.
>
> The above method is an advocasy approach to this issue. Some of the false
> assumptions are that everyone deletes spam everyday. That no one deletes
> anything but spam. That all unsolicited e-mail is unwelcome by everyone.
> That the amount of spam received by all users is uniform. All these
> assumtions are unsupported. They are implicitly partisan positions.
That there are false assumptions in these studies, namely that "everyone
deletes spam everyday" and "no one deletes anything but spam" and "the
amount of spam received by all users is uniform", is unjustified. Those
assumptions were not in any of those surveys. You are presuming these things
in your reply. Those studies surveyed users and took the averages of time
specifically spent deleting specifically spam and not other email. Nor were
those studies never assumed, presumed, surmised, or were based upon the
amount of spam being received by all users was uniform. Instead, the studies
took the mathematical averages based upon the aggregate of surveyed user
responses. Making a false presumption, then falsely attributing that
presumption as having been stated by your opponents in a previous argument,
is an implicitly partisan position and are explicitly rhetorical devices.
And as for whether or not all unsolicited e-mail is unwelcome by everybody,
no, all is not unwelcome by everyone. Only 95%-97% of email recipients don't
want it, not 100% of recipients. If 3% to 5% of the subscribers to Online
News might not mind if I unsolicitedly email to them the King James version
of the Bible as an attached email file, this doesn't make it legitimate for
me to send it unsolicited to 100% of the subscribers on this list.
> >Yet, none of those surveys estimated that the average user was spending
> >anywhere near NINE MINUTES per day deleting spams. If this
> NetRating survey
> >is true (and I argue that it is), then it means that bloated webpages are
> >wasting even more of people's time and money than spamming does.
> I hate to
> >point this out, but it's true.
>
> A waste of a person's time depends squarely on that person's perception.
> It cannot be honestly imputed. What one person considers useful time
> spent, another may not. Over generalization on what is or is not a "waste
> of time" can be misleading. I prefer faster loading pages. But i do not
> consider my wait for a page "wasted" if I am doing other things I enjoy,
> ...even if it is just listening to music, scanning a magazine article,
> surfing cable channels, etc......
Let's see if I understand your perceptions: Deleting something that you
didn't want to receive isn't a waste of your time? Not yet receiving
something that you've asked to receive and nominally should have received
immediately isn't a waste of your time? Maybe I'm not the one standing on
his head.
Many folks have responded to this thread by saying, 'Oh, waiting for
webpages to download isn't a waste of my time because I can brush my teeth,
bathe the dog, play a few games of chess, or read a magazine article while
waiting for those pages to download.' Or other similarly absurd responses.
Would you all respond with similar excuses if when you dialed your telephone
nothing happened for the initial 30 to 60 seconds -- no connection, no
ringing at the other end, no operator response? Would that be a waste of
your time? Or if nothing happened for that long when you turned on your
television or radio? To say that your time isn't being wasted by all these
involuntary waits is to say that you are living a life not of your own
choices, but according to the defaults and defects of the devices you use.
> Overuse of graphics is tiresome. I especially dislike blinking
> banner ads.
> These typically load first, and I usually resent the over-intrusiveness.
Agreed. Imagine if the print ads in your newspapers and magazines were all
blinking or otherwise animated. Drive you nuts.
> Users have
> >asked to receive those webpages, a crucial difference. By contrast, spams
> >are unsolicited, intrusive, and, worst of all, virtually never match a
> >user's interests.
>
> Virtually never? That is disputed by a survey you suggested that I read
> several months ago. I brought this contradiction to the attention of the
> list at that time. Don't you remember?
No, I sincerely don't remember that. Please cite the study.
> People's dislike of spam is inversely proportional to their
> interest in the
> topic presented. Not all users dislike all spam equally. That assumption
> does not stand scrutiny. A small group of good-folks are rabid
> about their
> hatred of all spam, but most are not.
Au contraire. Lets indeed see the study your mention. We'll compare it to
the many studies that say otherwise.
Besides, if it is only a small group of folks who are against spams, then
they must be one of the most effective lobbying groups in U.S. history. Look
at how many anti-spamming laws are under consideration in the U.S. Congress
and state legislatures. Hire these folks as lobbyists, Bill Gates, and
you'll have no more worries about government!
> Filtering and self-policing can reduce spam, and in places are
> said to have
> done so. Steve Outings has developed software for this noble purpose.
Client-side filters work after the fact. You add a spammer's email address
to a filtering file, but the spammer will simply changes addresses next
time. Or the spammer hijacks a legatee sending address. As for ISP filters,
they work by detecting large volumes of emails sent from a single sender's
address; but a spammer merely has to change a single letter or digit in each
message's sending address (which are often fraudulent or stolen) to
circumvent this. Etc. In any of these cases, filters don't reduce the volume
of spamming, as the ever growing volume of spamming indicates. Filters
merely block spams from being sent from addresses that spammers most often
no longer use.
I'm not aware of any cases of self-policing reducing spam. Nor, I believe,
is the U.S. Federal Trade Commission aware of any such cases. Please cite
such cases.
> Society is already over-burdened with poorly conceived,
> unenforceable laws.
> And even the obviously necessary laws, against robbery, murder, etc., do
> not eliminate these forms of misbehavior. Government action IS NOT the
> solution to every social problem. And automatically assuming that Federal
> action is the best or only resort, is itself a threat to social
> justice and economic good-order.
Four interesting rhetorical devices in that concluding paragraph:
1) A hyperbolic first sentence, attempting to disguise ANY new laws --
including those that are effective, well-conceived, and enforceable -- under
the guise of SOME existing laws that indeed are poorly conceived or
unenforceable or needless.
2) Polar thinking in the second sentence, inferring that if something
doesn't work all the time or cover all cases, then it shouldn't exist. In
the specific example cited, this would have us believe that there is not
real point in enacting laws against robbery, murder, etc. because these do
not work all the time. It attempts to lead us to believe that there is no
point in enacting any laws against spamming because no law can be 100%
effective.
3) A truism as the third sentence, interjected as an attempt to lend
credence to the sentences before and, particularly, after it. The absolute
statement in that sentence also circumvents the fact that governmental may
be the solution to some social problem.
4) a logical non-sequitur as the final sentence. The first phrase doesn't
logically lead to the conclusion in the second phrase. That overarching
second phrase hasn't been justified anywhere in his prior argument.
Moreover, the first phrase itself is faulty in that no one has been
"automatically assuming" anything. The entire sentence attempts to cast his
opponent as a radical who is against justice and social and economic order.
Just don't tell my neighbors here in conservative Greenwich, Connecticut.
Otherwise, they'll boot me out of the yacht club.
Vin Crosbie
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