> The only danger with this attitude would be if someone else would
> come along and make a list on the same subject as yours that did
> allow advertising.
Anyone who wants to is free to do so.
Personally, if I know that someone is making money distributing things
that I write, I'd be less inclined to contribute without being paid
for it. And if the magazine editors are paying for something, they'll
be more selective about what they are paying for. (They might need to
be more selective anyway. One of the most common complaints I get on
one of my lists is that there's too much volume. And this is on a
list where the material is generally on topic.) At any rate, in order
to compete with a "free" list, the "magazine" list will need to
increase the signal-to-noise ratio of its "content" to make up for the
decrease in signal-to-noise ratio caused by its advertisements.
But I suspect there will always be a place for the "free" lists, where
there are no editors to bias things, where it doesn't cost anything to
ask for help, and where people just help each other for the heck of it.
I predict that we will have both kinds of lists, each one serving
useful purposes. This seems like a Good Thing, as long as people
don't exploit the 'free' lists to get cheap advertising.
Keith Moore
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