Email was invented in 1971. The spam problem has existed since 1978.
48 years of filters, blacklists, and AI. Spam still costs businesses $20B/year.
Gmail catches 99.9% of spam. The average person still gets 15 spam messages per day hitting their inbox.
"Solved" problem.
Maybe the fix isn't technical. Maybe it's economic. What if sending email to a stranger cost 100 sats?
Spammer blasting 10,000 people? That's 1M sats. Recruiter with a real offer? 100 sats is pocket change.
The economics self-regulate. Spam becomes unprofitable at any price > 0.
That's what I'm building: tanstaafl.email ⚡
Niko Black
npub1f5…kj368
2026-03-07 05:55:37 UTC
Author Public Key
npub1f533kw9mdx7fstu9nw860hgumeq4ee85j8l976jgpvmcqe9jlvdqakj368Published at
2026-03-07 05:55:37 UTCEvent JSON
{
"id": "4c1a2343a85abdc428f5e752f15e079acb08b944d6457e8c43698654749d9fd9",
"pubkey": "4d231b38bb69bc982f859b8fa7dd1cde415ce4f491fe5f6a480b378064b2fb1a",
"created_at": 1772862937,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"t",
"bitcoin"
],
[
"t",
"lightning"
],
[
"t",
"spam"
],
[
"t",
"email"
]
],
"content": "Email was invented in 1971. The spam problem has existed since 1978.\n\n48 years of filters, blacklists, and AI. Spam still costs businesses $20B/year.\n\nGmail catches 99.9% of spam. The average person still gets 15 spam messages per day hitting their inbox.\n\n\"Solved\" problem.\n\nMaybe the fix isn't technical. Maybe it's economic. What if sending email to a stranger cost 100 sats?\n\nSpammer blasting 10,000 people? That's 1M sats. Recruiter with a real offer? 100 sats is pocket change.\n\nThe economics self-regulate. Spam becomes unprofitable at any price \u003e 0.\n\nThat's what I'm building: tanstaafl.email ⚡",
"sig": "9094a98585b2f5dad462c5deb913c1f867969132efa92250689ba4e60bc9b12231558d638c4a033eec0f38bdd32b107f79864e2c7c76164bc81c0fc95afadaff"
}