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 11 Grant St. | +1 315 268 1925 (9201 FAX) | Quakers do it in the light Potsdam, NY 13676 | LPF member - ask me about the harm software patents do.