i would be more inclined to say that it is caused by trying to keep this industry under control, at least with repsonsive programs.
although 99% of the time i can’t be bothered to bitch, i do think that spammers are:
1. competition
2. that they inflict damage to my business in terms of reputation (it doesn’t take a lot to for an “online joe” to link casino to spam)
3. that “my programs” should not encourage such marketing techniques (its related to being “fair”, as in getting rewarded for your efforts instead of ability to abuse)
4. it takes such a long time to build proper traffic (forget the ridiculous amount of hours webmasters put into this w/o getting 1 cent of return until 6 months through, or so), that i feel a little robbed by spammers.
as a good rule of thumb, its a belief and attempt to keep things relatively clean in this industry, for the fact being that if we/you/CAP members/affiliates/whatever don’t enforce this, i don’t see anyone else doing it.
as far as my knowledge goes, businesses/corporations/organizations are terrible at self-control in regards to balance of ethics and profit. this is not industry particular, it’s the nature of business itself.
unless there are third parties (like affiliates) enforcing their “beliefs” (don’t pay spammers) on affiliate programs through particular methods of control (not advertising properties that break the ‘rules’), most programs would still accept spam…