I think that recaptcha is just a better idea in regards to this. Yes, it's an extra step, but it does two things: a. verify that the person is in fact a person and b. cancel out spam bots, because of the need for the spam bots to be able to read the image, which is almost usually impossible to fake.
This way, email validation is not even important anymore to avoid spam.
Using part of what was suggested in your post, if we do both, use recaptcha and send an email validation link before sending any emails, we avoid spam to our servers and to the people from us and we save everybody a little bit of time. :)
The next issue arises with email delivery. How do we then ensure that our validation emails don't get filed as spam? Because if the user never sees it, then it becomes a hassle for them and chances are, unless they really, really wanted access to our site, they're not going to spend time contact us to help them with validation so that they can login or otherwise...
I definitely wouldn't go. Sorry. That photo is just too unwelcoming for me to imagine trying to figure out how I'd actually breathe after the oxygen tanks ran out of air. However, it's a very interesting proposition. To have to think completely out of the box. I mean, could you even call it thinking anymore? Everything that we know about physics, science, gravity, etc... all of the laws of this and that -- and the natural resources that we take for granted on earth would no longer be an option for usage. Yikes! How do you then -- beyond theory -- truly begin to obtain and apply practical knowledge in an efficient enough fashion as to avoid death on arrival?
I can think of mistakes that I've made that I still get a bit of an internal "sting" from. I think for me, the mistakes last for just about as long as it takes for a success to come replace it. And it's rather topic specific. If it's a business mistake, it's not until that mistake is followed by a business success at which point I've completely forgiven myself for the mistake. So for me, the time cycle is never more than a few months or so. However, in my view, that's too long. I think, reviewing it, learning from it, grieving for about 24 to 48 hours if necessary and then getting back in the game with the same or heightened enthusiasm, but yet poised is what I'm gunning for as my habit for dealing with mistakes, failures and losses.
I'd first ask what is advertising a direct response to? And what was eliminating advertising a direct response to?
For the former, I believe the first ad was placed in like the 1700s. Wait... I'll Google it... the first newspaper ad was placed in 1704 by a seller in Oyster Bay who wanted a buyer for their estate. (Thanks to AdAge for that one: http://adage.com/century/timeline/index.html)
So, I'd say that advertising is a form of getting the word out about something, when you know that someone might need it, but you're not exactly who specifically.
Then eliminating advertising would be getting rid of it because too many people were trying to get the word out, so much so that the channels for even knowing what was relevant to the receiver were saturated beyond belief.
I'd say get rid of the profit incentive, not the advertising. If there's no profit incentive for advertising, but instead direct communal bartering gain, then fewer people would advertise. The adverts you would see would be direct needs targeted to direct people who needed that stuff.
This reminds me of Craig's List. I used to love Craig's List because it was so much about community, and people sharing their needs and or looking to fill others' needs. However, when the traffic grew, the profit incentive grew, now Craig's List is over saturated. Way, way over saturated. That's why I'm now a member of Quentin's Friends. I pay $15 bucks a quarter for access to a community of people where there's minimal profit incentive driven advertising and posting, and more communal driven exchanges.