On Fri, 6 Oct 1995 09:06:15 -0600, Elliott Smith <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I've been desperately looking for an automated mailing system to handle
> sending out my e-zine and the sub/unsub requests.  Anyway, I'm interested
> in setting up a listserv, but the information I found at www.lsoft.com
> makes the whole thing look a little too costly for my needs.  Does anyone
> have any recommendations about a less expensive method?
 
LSOFT's "EASE basic" service is available for less than $1.50 per day,
which is probably the best bang-for-the-buck among mailing-list providers.
 
Have you considered some alternative methods, i.e., "publishing" your
E-zine on a WWW-page, and letting the subscribers use a full Internet
Service Provider to access it?  Have you considered writing software
to emulate the functionality of LISTSERV?  Recently, when somebody
requested a "free lunch", the following reply was posted to LSTOWN-L
(note: GIT == Georgia Institute of Technology):
 
| Date:         Thu, 7 Sep 1995 00:04:46 +0200
| From:         Eric Thomas <[log in to unmask]>
|
| Several providers have recently stopped their mailing list services and
| there are a lot of orphaned lists looking for a new home. We've seen with
| the GIT lists that there's a lot less free lunches than people who want
| one, and I'm afraid I don't see this changing. More and more universities
| seem to be asking people to please find a new home for their list, if not
| right now then within the next 3-6 months. And, with a few exceptions,
| the corporate sites will only sponsor lists if it somehow fits their
| corporate profile. I can see car manufacturers sponsoring the Chevy
| lovers list, but not a list about guinea pigs. There's actually a lot of
| opportunities in that direction, but most corporations are still Internet
| shy, and people don't really know where to turn. Besides, since it isn't
| commonplace yet, you have to be prepared to spend a lot of energy selling
| your idea to the company's PR department.
|
| 18 months ago I thought that the advent of the workstation versions of
| LISTSERV would change that situation, but apparently the universities
| were equally concerned about manpower as they were with mainframe cycles
| (and I can't really blame them). Above all, there has been a tremendous
| change in the accessibility of Internet services in the past couple
| years. Two years ago, if you were leading a small charitable group and
| needed a mailing list, or even (in some areas) a simple e-mail account,
| the local university was pretty much your only option. Nowadays you can
| buy Internet access for $20/month from dozens of service providers, so
| the universities probably don't feel the same level of pressure to
| provide lists for free, or at very low rates. And I can assure you that
| university lawyers spend a great deal of time being concerned about
| whether the university might not be construed as abusing its tax
| privileges and/or subsidies competing with local businesses (apparently
| you can get sued for that and lose a lot of money). So, I think the free
| lunches from the universities are coming to an end. There will be plenty
| of free lunches to be had from the corporate world, but you'll have to go
| and get them, and argue your case fiercely, whereas the universities
| would usually set up the list with minimal hassle. There will always be
| lists run by people on their workstations with "look the other way"
| approval from their employers, but the beneficiaries tend to be very
| quiet and not invite others in on the deal :-) I think people are just
| going to have to get used to the fact that the lists aren't free to run,
| and that someone has got to pay for them one way or the other. This has
| worked for e-mail accounts, I don't see any reason it wouldn't work for
| mailing lists as long as the charges are in line with what your average
| non-technical user is willing to pay for the service. L-Soft will open
| its own "hobby list" service very soon, and hopefully rescue all the
| lists that Netcom, Webcom and others won't run any longer. Yes, the
| prices will be lower than for our business service :-) There's a lot more
| orphaned lists now than when GIT dropped out, we have better technology
| at our disposal, and we've invested in a big delivery server for unrelated
| reasons, all in all we're operating on a larger scale with lower costs.