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Comment by Suppafly | Hacker News Reader

>How do you define "spam"?

You know the answer. Only assholes need clarification that unsolicited contact is spam.

I mean there's a legal definition of it. I personally don't think cold calling someone to make a sale is spam. The caveat being that if they tell me to not call again, I won't.

And LinkedIn messages don't bother me as long as they follow the rules of the site which don't prohibit cold outreach.

Strong disagree. My personal number has also leaked and I get 5-10 cold calls per day. They call during important work meetings. They call during dinner with my family. They call when I'm away on vacation. I will never, ever willingly buy any product from these calls.

Sounds like you need AI call screening.

Don't know when that will get here, but when it does (and better AI-powered spam filtering), I think a lot of these problems will disappear, and a lot of sales teams are going to have to rethink.

Google Fi has screening you can enable either for all unknown callers automatically or manually by tapping a button when the call pops up.

>I personally don't think cold calling someone to make a sale is spam.

You're wrong.

Based on what?

Based on the social contract that calling people unasked for to try and sell them stuff is unacceptable. Only assholes need this explained to them, normal people inherently understand it, the fact that you don't says something about your character or your intelligence.

> Based on the social contract that calling people unasked for to try and sell them stuff is unacceptable.

I may personally dislike it at times but that doesn't mean it's societally unacceptable in an objective way.

you're wrong, there is something broken in you that makes you unable to realize it.

For LinkedIn specifically, not only does it not prohibit cold outreach, but Sales Navigator, which is specifically set up to give you broader access to do cold outreach, is a major part of the product.

You're signing up to be sold to when you sign up to LinkedIn.

Right but there's a benefit to signing up as well. Or else you wouldn't be signing up at all.

Doesn't seem like a bad thing?

I didn't mean to imply it's a bad thing. I've bought things from people trying to sell to me on LinkedIn more than once.

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