Spamming

Flooding a communication channel with low-quality, unsolicited content to exploit attention at near-zero marginal cost to the sender but significant cost to receivers. Spam economics: if sending a million messages costs $100 and 0.01% convert, the spammer profits while 999,990 people bear the annoyance cost. As a general model, spamming describes any strategy where the sender externalizes costs to receivers—volume-based outreach, mass litigation, flooding regulatory processes with comments, or meeting culture where one person's 'just a quick meeting' consumes hours of others' time.

When to use it

When communication channels are overwhelmed with low-value content; when meeting calendars are full but productivity is low; when designing outreach strategies and need to avoid spam economics; when organizational communication practices externalize attention costs.

How it can help

Audit your own communication for spam characteristics: are you sending messages that are costless for you but costly for recipients? Mass emails, excessive Slack messages, unnecessary meetings, and 'FYI' forwards are all organizational spam. The test: would you send this if it cost you $10 per recipient? If not, you're probably externalizing costs. For defense: build filters (both technical and social) that raise the cost of low-value communication and protect attention as the scarce resource it is.