Ask HN: Could something like an email Tobin Tax work to reduce unwanted emails?

by slackr on 2/16/2025, 6:31:43 PM with 6 comments
A Tobin tax was originally defined as a tax on all spot conversions of one currency into another. It was suggested by James Tobin, an economist who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.*

I think spam and aggressive email marketing is akin to currency speculation in some ways, but haven’t read about anything like a stamp or token for emails since Yahoo and AOL announced a plan in 2006 that never took off.*

Could it be done, to help reduce unwanted emails and raise and raise public funds for good causes like climate action? Anyone written about this or working on it?

* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobin_tax * http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4684942.stm

  • by Etheryte on 2/16/2025, 7:46:26 PM

    This idea gets floated pretty much every time the spam discussion comes up, and it would only work at the cost of the free internet. If the return from spam is marginally higher than the cost, there will still be spam. On the other end of the spectrum, the higher you make the cost, the more you cut out people from low income countries and poor backgrounds.

  • by beardyw on 2/16/2025, 8:39:04 PM

    These would be micro payments, nobody has a good solution for that

    If I create something a bit like email does that get included, or SMS or WhatsApp etc etc?

  • by dave4420 on 2/16/2025, 6:40:45 PM

    Given that spammers send spam from servers they’ve hacked into, wouldn’t this just mean that the hacking victims would have to pay the tax?

  • by tobinfekkes on 2/16/2025, 9:07:24 PM

    Great idea, but not too fond of the name.