I am not sure if Guy Kewney is trying to one-up Bill Gates, or leave readers’ heads spinning, but the point of this post doesn’t match the title. Maybe sensationalism at work, because the feed hit my aggregator forthwith.
Yes, it will mean that people will send advertising to you; but the problem with advertising isn’t just “it’s advertising!” – it’s the amount.
One advert a day, I probably won’t notice. It’s three hundred a day that makes email unmanageable; and no marketing operation can afford to send three hundred emails to every user on the planet every day, if it costs on a per-mail basis.
If Goodmail changes advertising from 300 a day to one a day, then nobody will mind. If paid-for mail still runs at 300 a day, people will drop AOL and other Goodmail customers, and move to other ISPs who don’t allow it.
Sounds like someone is under the impression that the Goodmail method creates an open door to “@Whatever_Url_Is_Paying.com” to spam anyone and everyone.
Then again, maybe my reading comprehension skills have just gone to shit.