When Even Legitimate Emails Are Overwhelming
from the what-can-you-do? dept
There have been plenty of stories about the so-called (and greatly exaggerated) "death of email." Almost all of these, however, are discussing the problems associated with spam. Professor Lawrence Lessig is discovering a different kind of problem. As he's become something of a net.celebrity he's started receiving so much personal email that he can no longer effectively respond to it all. He even sent out a note telling people he hasn't responded to that he's given up and will not be responding to their email - though, he's quite sorry about it. Still, as some people in the article point out, no one says he needs to respond to every email he receives. If someone is emailing him who does not know him, he shouldn't necessarily feel obligated to respond to each and every message. In some sense, this does raise the question about the definition of "spam" again. If spam is "anything I don't like," is getting to much personal email spam as well?
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
