Dealing with a couple of junk messages a day isn't much of a burden, but there's nothing to stop that number from increasing to a couple of thousand a day if spam continues to proliferate. Junk e-mail doesn't just make it difficult to pick out the messages from friends, relatives, business contacts, and other people you do want to hear from. The problems caused by spam have nothing to do with its being commercial. Nor will I forward chain letters, petitions, mass mailings, or virus warnings to large numbers of others. This is my contribution to the survival of the online community.
Boycotts are easy.
I'm not likely to buy the sorts of things the spammers advertise anyway. Because e-mail is so cheap, a handful of positive responses is enough to make a mailing pay off, and there will always be a handful of suckers out there. So complaining directly to the sender is impossible, and the only way to respond is usually to call a long-distance number or send mail to a post office box, which few people are willing to do. The fake return addresses are often nonexistent addresses at real companies, and the mail servers of those innocent companies must then face the onslaught of complaints and bounced messages. Some of the victimized companies have filed suit against spammers.