No. We pay to send letters on paper because they get handled by people. But emails are just through wires and all that. If that was so, then all AIM's would need to be payed and maybe AB. AB is kind of like email, just that more than one people see it. That would be a a nightmare!

From a business perspective, I think each ISP should be free to set their own billing policies that makes the most sense to them. I.e., whatever is a consensual trade/agreement between buyer and seller of a service... This principle has led to a situation where emails aren't fee-based, and Internet service is dirt-cheap (unlike heavily-regulated telephone service). Since the equipment and infrastructure is already in place, and people pay a flat rate connection fee, there's no real cost to send and receive email...it's just packets over the backbone, just like web pages and everything else that traverses the Internet. Further, this seems to be in the best interest of both Internet companies and Internet subscribers. Also, if email were charged for (like cell-phone text messages), it would be exasperating for parents to subscribe to the Internet for $19.95/month for their chindren, then get slammed for $100s of "hidden" charges for email use! It would really kill the Internet to do that! I even know someone that happened to! They got a cell phone for their teenager and were promised a flat rate of $39.95 with no hidden charges. Then, next month, they got a $500 cell phone bill because the teens all text-messaged each other! And personally, I like that email is unmetered. If each email were charged for, it would limit people's desires to reach out and make new friends, like sending or receiving a friendly "Hi!" from a fellow Answerbagger, for example.

No, I think the solution for spam is sender authentication. When the current e-mail protocols were invented, there was no concern about being able to verify the identity of a sender, because the Internet was a small collection of government and academic folks who used e-mail mainly in their research activities. The protocol (called SMTP for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) doesn't bother to ensure the identity of the person sending the mail -- you can claim to be just anybody you like. This is what allows spammers to do as they please. The way to solve this is for the large ISP's to agree to a transition plan which phases in a sender authentication method. At first, unauthenticated mail would just be "slowed down", providing legitimate users with an incentive to get with the new protocol. As time goes by, these ISPs must tighten their standards until they're completely rejecting unauthenticated senders. Nobody wants to be locked out of sending mail to the large ISP's (AOL, MSN,YAHOO, GOOGLE, etc.) so everyone would climb on board if those folks led the way. While it would still be possible for a spammer to send mail, it would also be possible to positively ID the source of the mail, which would enable enforcement of anti-spam laws. Then we could regain control of our inboxes. Personally, I've had the same e-mail for over 10 years. I receive about 300 spam messages every day. Most of them are caught by the spam filter, but this is a terrible waste of time and resources by everyone.

No no no. Just because the post office is having trouble making money because of email, does not mean they should start charging us.

The only good thing would be less spam. I don't think (unfortunately*) the benefit outweighs the detriment of free communication o an unPRECEDENTED scale. *I AM OH SO TIRED of enlarging my penis ads. I've got penis enough, thank you, sir!

Personally, I would get rid of my computer if we were charged for email. I lived 47 years without one before I got this one, so I think I can live the rest of my days without one. But considering the greed in this world to day, I would not be surprised if it happens. No I do not think we should be charged for email. it goes through phone lines that I am already paying for or through the air, which I believe is enough payment.

Heck no! Start charging for email and the entire computer population is going to be ticked! I will stop using it all together.. who can afford to pay for emails... isp server charges are high enough as it is!

Seems everyone is against it, so I have to point out an opinion that does suggest this could work. Why isn't it terrible that we charge for snail mail? wouldn't it be great if we could just send greeting cards to everyone for free, then holidays would be much happier? etc. etc. How is email oh so different? There are costs (to providers) there just as much as in physical mails. Now, just imagine that costs are incurred through ISPs, and you would be given an initial quota as part of your payment to your ISP, just like you pay your snail mail post office. Then, for every reasonable person, this quota would suffice and you wouldn't even feel it. If you happen to need more in some month, you would buy an extra quota, but that would be very unusual. However, bulk mail senders would have to pay for it, and justify the cost they are incurring to ISPs. The more I type, the more reasonable it seems...