Spammers...
 

How does this work? How do these people make money doing this? If there is no money in it, why do they do it?

Is it just to annoy the hell out of all of us?

Sadly, I think they do make money because people are idiots and people do reply to this crap. People are greedy and/or stupid. As long as that's the case, someone will get rich from those people.

Send a billiion emails. Get 0.001% of the population to buy your product at $10. Poof. Instant $100k. I forgot who said it, but:

"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large quantities."

Spammers definately make money, especially the spammers at the top of the spam chain. It hardly costs them anything to create the email, and basically nothing to send it to hundreds of millions of email addreses. Like Rob said, all it takes to make money is a small percentage to click on the links (pay-per-click) or buy something (directly from them, or they are with an affliate program and get a set amount per signup).

Ahh the good ol' internet...Who knew that sending a bunch of random crap to a bunch of people you'll never meet could make you a tidy bundle of money?

They used to do this before the internet, too. It was called "direct mail marketing".

Costs were a little higher, and you had that pesky Postal Inspector to deal with.

I have noticed "hot chat" texting advertised on late night TV, a domain that was once dominated by 900 adverts.


Currently, I'm planning to start a web based subscription service that should net me millions. For just $10 per month, I will email you random banter from PPOT. For an additional $2 per month, I will include some Lew Rockwell content.