Would paying for email stop spam?

Some time ago, I wrote about paying for email in my Network World column and took alot of heat over the idea, as many proponents of the idea have. However, I still believe that the idea has merit, since a universally applied pay-per-email scheme in which email sent without a payment was simply rejected would put many spammers out of business.

If we assume that a typical user of email in the workplace sends roughly 50 emails every day (which is more than most users send) and if we assume a payment of one-half cent per email, the annual cost of sending email for that user would be about $63 annually. Assuming universal acceptance of the pay-per-email idea, that cost would be offset by reduced expenditures on the software, storage and labor required to manage anti-spam capabilities.

For valid email marketers, the expenditure of one-half cent would represent a significant increase in the cost of doing business, but would it result in higher deliverability rates that would generate more sales?

A pay-per-email scheme is fraught with problems, such as universal acceptance, who actually collects the payments, and so forth. But would the scheme actually solve the spam problem?