 The 1 percent rule of spam?
Tuesday, 1 August 2006
A recent New York Times article proves just why spam is still so effective: the world contains enough computer-using knuckeheads to make it profitable.
How is it that someone is literate enough to actually use a computer system but too stupid to realise when they are obviously being conned? Viagra. Nigerian money. Penile enlargements. University diplomas. Pornography. Not to mention the latest phishing schemes.
Apparently, there’s this “1% rule of the web” which states something along the lines of:
“89% of people will simply read the content on websites, another 10% will interact with that content in various ways and the remaining 1% will actually create the content.”
Taking the New York Times statistics into consideration, I got thinking about adapting that rule into something like a “1% rule of spam”, where:
“89% of people will simply ignore spam completely, another 10% will read the spam and then choose to ignore it, and the remaining 1% will ensure that spam continues to be profitable by stupidly clicking on whatever offer is preying on their greed, fear or insecurity at the time.”
If we could all make a list of 99 other people we know, the odds are that on average, one of us is an idiot who’s actually dumb enough to click on these emails. Is it someone at our work? Is it a friend? Or a neighbour perhaps? Or maybe even a family member?
If only we could find that one idiot and grab them by the scruff of the neck and shake them until their brain cells are re-arranged in such a way that they could actually be used.
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I would like to see that scientific study that claims that "on average, 1 out of 100 of us are complete idiots". My feeling is that the figure might actually be much higher especially with regards to the use of technology - remember that people actually SMS votes for Big Brother!
Is there a source for this information?
I thank you once again Ivan for that different view of our universe.
Sadly, I agree with you.
The BBC reported some eighteen months ago that the figure is actually 10%, not 1%, like I hypothesized. As I don't have any evidence to support my theory, we should then conclude that the former is likely to be more accurate and we could therefore dismiss my claim as nothing more than wildly naive optimism about the size of the fraction of the human race who continue to exhibit behavioual patterns which match the profile of an imbecile.
Either that, or I was just being facetious.