Hi, y'all.  I've been kicking around the net for at least six years
now.  Right now I sell support for some free MS-DOS Ethernet drivers.
It's a nice business, but MS-DOS is going away.  I need to find the
next thing to do.
 
What I *want* to do is sell a service that adds value to mailing
lists.  There is a large number of different ways to get on and off
mailing lists, including the time-proven one of sending mail directly
to the list.  Wry :).  Now, to be sure, this is not a problem with
LISTSERV-managed lists.  And maybe Eric would like the whole world to
be using L-Soft products, but it just isn't going to happen.
 
I propose to solve this subscription problem by selling access to
mailing lists.  I will subscribe to a mailing list at my host, and
forward the mail to those of my customers who wish to receive it.  Of
course people can already do that, but they have to suffer through
whatever random subscription method is used.  My service will get
people on any list through a single point.
 
I feel that mailing list administrators are the most unsung heroes of
the Internet.  Mostly behind the scenes, they make mailing lists work
for people.  And when they come out from the scenery, it's usually to
the sound of massive flamage because they didn't perform up to the
users' expectations.  That's another problem I want to solve.  By
taking people's money, they're buying the right to bitch.  So that,
instead of flaming some unpaid mailing list administrator, they'll
flame me, and I'll deal with the problem.
 
I can see however, from having read this list for a month or so, that
trying to serve J. Random mailing list is going to be a problem.  Some
mailing list administrators wish to control precisely who receives and
who sends mail on their lists.  They certainly have the right to make
those decisions.  But it throws a money wrench into my plans to
redistribute their list (I know of no good solution).
 
So, I'm wondering what people think of this service?  On the one hand,
I'm "making money off your efforts", and that's true to an extent, but
I'm also making your life easier by dealing with mail bounces,
flamage, etc.
 
-russ <[log in to unmask]>      ftp.msen.com:pub/vendor/crynwr/crynwr.wav
Crynwr Software   | Crynwr Software sells packet driver support | ask4 PGP key
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