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>Is spamming that lucrative or what's going on?

Yes, it is. There's not that many programming jobs where you can easily make 500k+ a year.

For example, if you're phishing for credit cards with VBV info you might very well get $20 or more per card when selling in bulk (or twice that if you aren't). 10000 emails takes a couple of minutes to send and if you get a 1% success rate that's $2000

I often wonder this and I think that's probably the reason. Someone somewhere is offering a good deal for people to write spam software for them. A real shame, because it's not a trivial task and that skillset could be used in much better ways.

My assumption has always been that a steady stream of generic spam would make it easier to make the real stuff look legit

Probably plenty of programmers who are felons/meth addicts/too anti-social to be employable/too lazy to work a real job.