The fact that ISP’s can’t figure out a way to filter spam effectively, or more importantly, control it’s origination may be what spurs further growth of IM and VoIP. That is if we don’t see a tiered, Balkanizing of the ‘Net as we know it.
It seems AOL is trying to lead the way with a email toll system that lets legit mail get through. Gee, wasn’t that the idea of opt-in, then trusted sender, white lists and more? Guess none of those ideas worked well enough, so now we’re seeing the equivilant of the HOV lane being proposed.
At the same time we’re seeing Net Neutrality challenged.
I don’t disagree with charging more for better service, but I do draw the line at certain points and this may be one of them depending on who is declared commerical email. Companies doing business with other companies is indeed commerce, but the growth of the Internet economy is based on interactions between each other. Can you see a startup not being able to send receive email back from a VC because the VC didn’t pay the toll, and their mail ended up in the bulk folder? What about those of us in the PR world who email reporters (many of who consider a query junk mail?)
What I’m seeing is the makings of the end of the Net as we know it…and I don’t feel fine about it.