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Comment by Crazyontap | Hacker News Reader

> First one I started 10 years ago. I built a bot that auto DMed people in various internet forums. My first 100 users came from that.

Isn't this by definition Spamming people as you were using bots to mass DM people?

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Yes. Surprise surprise, most businesses generate most of their initial sales via cold calls/emails/DMs/other automated marketing. That’s the real world

And because they create so much noise, no option left for a new comer other than trying to shout louder than them. All-in-all a vicious cycle of spamming!

This is older than the ideas of the internet itself.

Channels get saturated and marketers start looking for new ones with les noise/competition.

The oldest that I can think of is old school markets where is shops yells to tell you how good of a deal you're gonna have if you buy from them. I think they date back to the middle ages, no?

Older, almost certainly. The discovery of advertising murals and graffiti in Hereculum makes me smile a little. Humans have been humans all along.

A.k.a. the marketplace (the literal one) 50 years ago!

What do you mean, 50 years ago? Go to any smallish town in German and you’ll find a farmers market about once a week, with people shouting at passerby’s to buy their cheap produce. Probably the same in most European countries, and I’d wager in many other parts of the world?

Sure. One difference.

I can't hear them here in Canada, and indeed, I can't hear everyone on the planet who is shouting.

Unlike spam.

You read the spam in my inbox today?

You got the initial product invite from the GP?

This might be the reminder bot

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