Not well, but it works. If someone has to pay to send messages, the response rate becomes very important. If you don t have to pay to send a message, and spammers don t pay because they typically steal everything they use, then the response rate doesn t matter. It s not uncommon for spammers to send nothing at all to people who send them money. The cost of spam is paid by Internet backbone operators who have to transport the junk, by ISPs who have to store it, and by consumers who have to waste their time opening it.
Education is the answer.
When people understand why spam is bad and understand who they should complain to so spammers accounts can be found and nuked, the problem will go away. It will not be legislated away. The way to stop this crap is to make the spammer s life so miserable that he or she will stop. If everyone simply deleted spam, eventually the network would slow to a crawl because there would be so much junk e-mail. Treat the cause, not the symptom.