Good copy: what's it supposed to do?

Seth pretty much nails it again:

The first goal of copy is to get you to read more copy.
The second goal is to tell a story that spreads.
And then, finally, to have that story get people to take action.

Of course, if we could somehow skip directly to step 3, it would save copywriters like me a lot of work.

That's good insight, but it's not what I wanted to focus on. This is:

The worst thing you can do is be boring and vague.
The second worst thing you can do is be boring and verbose and obvious.

Amen! In other words, give your readers a little credit. They're not complete idiots. They get it. They can fill in the blanks. Thanks, Seth.