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Comment by nobodyandproud | Hacker News Reader

Already three down-votes, but not a single explanation or repudiation as to why this particular problem isn’t solved more easily by markets.

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The technological and legislative infrastructure required to turn this into a market far exceeds what would be required for simpler anti-spam measures. It comes across as unhelpful and detached, like suggesting world peace as the solution to gang violence in your neighborhood.

What technical limitation?

There is nothing simpler, except that some very well-funded special interest groups never want to see this happen.

When I was on a limited plan, the amount of spam messages and calls were virtually zero because the limit would run up and be charged against the caller (internationally).

The month I switched to an unlimited, I started getting spammed.

Now much of the spam is domestic, but I fail to see how this is possibly unfeasible technically.

Why should we artificially charge law abiding people for making a call? Why not disallow call spoofing? Why should we allow telecom fraud, especially when there are obvious technical solutions?

And what well-funded SIGs are our to get your phone call tax plan?

What’s artificial about it? Are you old enough to remember when calls cost money, and we didn’t have these problems?

Phone calls do cost money. Unlimited mobile calling plans are very recent, and many areas in the world are still by the minute and rather expensive.

Markets actually create the conflicts of interest which cause this situation to exist in the first place.

By way of indirect response, Bernard J. Stern's "Resistances to the Adoption of Technological Innovations" (1937):

https://archive.org/details/technologicaltre1937unitrich/pag...

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