Listen,
 
In spite of the generic title, we  all know that this discussion is about
certain large  service providers that  certain list owners would  like to
nuke over the  board. I don't want  to restrict the freedom  of speech on
this list, but I think that in this case the best recipe is patience. The
large service providers  are getting into mailing  lists, very cautiously
because of all  the horror stories they've heard of,  but they're getting
there.  When  they  do,  the  small service  providers  will  all  follow
overnight. Now, think about the implications. It stands to reason that if
provider X introduces mailing lists to Joe Ignorant User, and Joe decides
this list stuff sounds cool and takes  up the provider on its offer, most
of the people  on Joe's list will,  at least initially, be  users with an
account at the same provider. Now as you know many of them don't know not
to subscribe to lists and leave for  3 weeks, so Joe's mailbox will start
to fill  up. Guess  what Joe  will do  then. Multiply  by 1000  Joes, and
calculate  the odds  that the  provider's  mail system  will continue  to
generate unusable delivery errors, or complain about not having delivered
for 2h and continuing for 5 days.  The problem will solve itself when the
providers start offering  lists themselves and a  senior manager realizes
that spending a couple thousand dollars  to make programmer X fix program
Y will save tens of thousands in support fees.
 
  Eric