I am beginning to think there might be a business model for email in this, that helps the larger providers and senders.
If you leave out Spam, who accounts for 80% of emails -- it's probably the large newsletters (guessing here.). The larger email providers can charge these newsletters, and the newsletters are assured of guaranteed delivery.
That said, I am sure I am not the first one to come up with this, anyone doing this already?
% spam has probably increased by this, as it is only a barrier to entry to mass-mailers that aren't spammers. Examples are: Paypal, EBay, airlines (although a lot of airline email looks like SPAM to me). You have to verify your identity with state-issued documents for some (all?) of those programs. There are a lot of restrictions (contractual and technical) applied to the messages that are sent through such programs. They are too expensive and risky for spammers to make money using them; in fact, they are too expensive for almost anybody to bother signing up for them.
If you leave out Spam, who accounts for 80% of emails -- it's probably the large newsletters (guessing here.). The larger email providers can charge these newsletters, and the newsletters are assured of guaranteed delivery.
That said, I am sure I am not the first one to come up with this, anyone doing this already?