I think some spammers must actually make a profit. The costs are so low that all they need is a conversion rate of 0.001% or something. Send out 100,000 emails and get 100 customers.

I also suspect that there are people who make a lot of money selling spamming as a business opportunity. Selling the mailing list and software (and maybe the product too) to suckers is probably good business. Especially in these trying economic times. 9 out of 10 of those suckers make nothing, but they generate a fuck load of spam...

Course someone out there might actually know the facts. Sounds like a good investigative journalist story to me...