[Nitramp]

Same im Europe (at least the parts I ever lived in). I think it's indeed the commercial incentive - once the caller/sender has to pay anything, however small the fee, it's no longer economical to spam.

I remember making sending emails cost a tiny fraction of a dollar was proposed some time back in the nineties to stop email spam. That was superseded by effective bayesian spam filters. The cost of that is that it's near impossible to self host email servers these days, as all those filters will label you as a spammer. Otoh requiring some payment solution would also be a strong barrier...

[visarga]

> I remember making sending emails cost a tiny fraction of a dollar was proposed some time back in the nineties to stop email spam. That was superseded by effective bayesian spam filters.

That is what made me interested in ML (it was an article by Paul Graham - "A plan for spam"), years later I am an ML engineer.