My buddy Aamir Lakahni wrote a interesting post on the write.io service. The original post can be found HERE. I see a valuable use case for this when I attend events and conferences. They make you provide a email address that gets hammered with SPAM. It will be nice to make them pay to plug their messages. It is a better approach then just providing a fake email account. Below is Aamir’s article.
What if you had to pay to send every email? Would you think twice about what you send? Would it change the content or the clarity of the message? Do you think charging money to send email would reduce SPAM and other unwanted email?
Financial consequences, even minor ones, usually adds incredible efficiency on how people behave or think. For example, how often do you buy stamps? A few years back they were necessity, now they are a nuisance. We get aggravated by taking an envelope with a paid-for stamp to the mail box. The round trip is aggravating actually, because it typically includes cleaning out the endless clutter of print that gets dumped on us daily through that same wretched hole. It simply boggles the technical mind.
Back on topic.
If I received five cents for every email I received every day I would make a paltry $3.50. Not quite enough for a meal that is actually good for me. After all, it takes a while for 5 cents to add up. I have always wondered something…if I charged people to send me emails, would that cut down on SPAM and other unwanted inbox clutter? So I searched around a little, and as usual, the depth and variety of what is available on the Internet did not disappoint.
Write.io is a service that fills an interesting niche.
Write.io will assign you an email address ([email protected]). You give people and businesses that email address. When you register your account, you tell Write.io where to forward emails. When anyone emails you at your Write.io email account, it is automatically forwarded to your personal email address. With a twist…
When someone emails you at your Write.io email address, they automatically get a reply that states how much it costs to email you. The message includes a link to a simple payment gateway where the person can pay by credit card or Bitcoin.
The email is forwarded to your personal email address only after the payment is completed.
Write.io gives you the option to deposit the money into a Stripe account (see https://stripe.com/) or donate it to charity thru Watsi, which is a global funding platform for medical treatments. They connect donors with people in need of medical care and enable them to fund low-cost medical assistance.
The Write.io service charges a fee that varies, depending on how much you charge to receive emails. It appears the charge is waived if you are donating to Watsi.
So spammers….unite! And while you do, donate to me or Watsi.
