Well, since we're all making forecasts,  here is what I think will happen
to the current free/academic/educational lists  in the next couple years.
There  will always  be  a core  of 100%  serious,  purely academic  lists
supported by  the universities, by  grants, whatever. Just as  today. But
the universities  won't be able to  keep meeting the demand  for the more
recreational, "half serious" lists. Some  will be sponsored by commercial
interests  (in  fact this  is  already  starting  to happen),  some  will
disappear, some  may turn  into pay-to-read  electronic magazines,  but I
think the bulk  of these lists will survive through  private donations of
time and money by  the list owners. Today, most list owners  have a PC at
home and dial-up  access with some sort  of scheme where they  pay by the
hour. The hardware  to run a list is  still on the high end  on what list
owners are likely to have at home. But look at the 386es. They were brand
new just a few years ago, and now they're considered obsolete. That's the
kind of  machine list  owners have  at home. In  a couple  years, they'll
probably have sluggish  486es that nobody wants to get  near, or obsolete
Pentiums  for  the  less  unfortunate.   These  machines  are  more  than
sufficient to run a  mailing list. I'm also willing to  bet that 64k ISDN
access will be available at affordable  rates. And, as you know, LISTSERV
was been ported  to Win95, which by  then should have the  same degree of
market penetration as Windows 3.1 today.  So, my guess is that say 25-50%
of list owners will have the necessary equipment to run lists at home, at
an affordable  surcharge (leaving the PC  on 24h and buying  the software
and/or  an ISDN  card). 4-5  owners could  pool their  funds and  buy the
necessary additional hardware/software to run the lists, and off we go...
I am not  worried about the free  lists :-) Naturally there's  a limit to
how far this  can go, because a  home PC may not have  the reliability to
run a large list, and the list  owner may not be technical enough to sort
out the system tuning problems  associated with large volumes. There will
be commercial outfits offering quality  pay-to-read magazines and I don't
see  why  they  wouldn't  be  successful.  But  I  think  that  with  the
democratization of mailing lists, there won't be any homeless list in the
future. The main obstacle right now is dependable, 24h Internet access at
affordable rates. But when I see  what the leading providers are doing, I
have no doubt that  it will all become widely available  within a year or
two. That's my 2 cents :-)
 
  Eric