[netsharc]

Bill Gates' book The Road Ahead had the idea of a paywall to fight spam, someone who really wants to get your attention could attach a $20 "stamp" to their mail, and if it's a really important mail, say from a long-lost family member, you'd refund them. If it's just spam, you can keep the money.

[bluetwo]

I'm still waiting for someone to build an email system where only the header is sent along. The body of the message must be retrieved from the original server using a unique key included in the header. This would decrease spoofing of IPs and make black listing more accurate.

Please someone steal this idea...

[ramses0]

Everything old is new again: https://cr.yp.to/im2000.html

[bluetwo]

Ha! That's great. Did anyone build it?

[sanswork]

That sounds like a great idea at first but if you think about it for a bit you realise it would just increase the digital divide dramatically.