Blake Schwendiman's Blog and Blook

The proliferation of junk mail and junk email never ceases to amaze me. After the long weekend, I was amazed (as usual) to see that my primary email account has 1,176 messages in the junk folder. Additionally I received 632 junk comments on my blog this weekend.

I'm used to it now and fortunately there are good spam filters available to make sure that I don't have to actually look at my junk messages anymore, but it still amazes me that the problem is so prolific. The question I have is who actually reads and responds to this stuff? At home I immediately get rid of all the coupons, credit card offers and other solicitations that arrive in my physical mail box. I don't answer the phone if I don't know who's calling. I never look into my junk email folder and I don't approve junk comments on my blog.

Who does respond to this stuff? There must be someone out there who does or all of these things would just stop. Can anyone explain junk mail/email and telemarketing? Is the response rate still good (enough)? Is it getting better or worse? I'm curious.