I was reading an article on spam, and suddenly it hit me, why didn't I get in on this cash cow? Think about it, it's a pretty interesting problem to work on, very hands-on technology. And it's interesting from a psychological point of view, because spamming is an epic battle between the good and the bad. :D It is a point of ingeniousness on part of the spammer to circumvent every obstacle he is made to cross. This is a pretty exciting mix of technology and psychology, on either side of the fence. And plenty of cases to boost your ego, whenever you successfully draw up a successful obstacle, or you overcome it. Then of course it's the money, which we keep hearing is good, but since spammers probably don't file tax returns, we don't really know.

Although, the problem doesn't really evolve much, does it? The point of spam (and spam itself) is pretty much what it was 10 years ago, just that the method of getting it to the public have become clever. But it's still doing the same thing they always did, so once you've gotten sick of that, there's nothing more to sink your teeth into, no other goal that you could pursue.

Besides, the problem itself, while being circumstantially interesting, is not in itself an interesting problem to solve. It's basically mailing out envelopes, or sending out the traditional junk mail letters. Just doing it in a highly organized and automated way.

Another downside is that it's not a socially applaudable career. You won't be getting any good references from spamming when you're applying for your next job. The average person from the current generation of young adults is expected to change their career 4 times in the space of their work lifetime. But going from spamming to something new might be tricky, because your past x years are poorly accounted for, unless you state that you were in the business of spamming, which may be frowned upon.

So though I've never evaluated spamming as a career choice before, I have now, and it may just look a little more appealing than it really is.