[paul cotter (OP)]

What is the value of spam, either to the spammers or the spamees?. It seems to be arising at a disconcerting frequency, thankfully with a short shelf life. As for myself, being largely vegan, it has no appeal.

[Halc]

What is the value of spam, either to the spammers or the spamees?

It's part of advertising of course. There are ads on almost any radio station for instance that, for a fee, will drive traffic to the client's website. One of the primary tools to do this is spam bots which generate content linking certain keywords with the client website. The google bots see this and over time, notice a pattern. My job is to remove such posts as fast as the bots read them.

So the audience is primarily the bots, not so much the human readers. If you see that a certain topic has been read 100 times, about 85% of that is bots. They're the primary readers of the site content.

[paul cotter (OP)]

I fail to see any advertising potential in any of the spam posts that have appeared(briefly) here. They usually incorporate poor quality English, seem not to direct to any particular site or direct to sites with decidedly dodgy descriptors. I often receive unsolicited advertising from the likes of "sigma Aldrich" or "on semiconductors" but these are proper ads, would these be classed as spam?

[alancalverd]

It has fed armies and unfortunate schoolchildren for a few generations. Its principal value has been to make people appreciate good food, when the spam runs out, and it can be used as bait for various inedible fish.

[Petrochemicals]

A great deal to people who profit from it.

[Colin2B]

….but these are proper ads, would these be classed as spam?

The rules here expressly forbid unsolicited advertising, so yes we view them as spam
Many of the ads we remove are links to porn, prostitution and gambling sites. The objective of the poster is to get people to click and so up the search rating of the site, as well as drawing in the susceptible.

[Petrochemicals]

I wonder how effective online advertising actually will be in the future, at present it is apparently effective, but will we begin to become desensitised to it

[paul cotter (OP)]

Petrochemicals, agreed, I ignore ALL ads without exception.

[alancalverd]

Years ago I swore never to buy anything whose television adverts belittle men. That immediately reduced the impact of TV advertising by 50%, and everything else seems to be aimed at women who want to stink, children who want to take distorted photographs, or people who would rather wait for a delivery than open a can of beans.