The email went something like this:

Subject: Important News--Listbot Service to Shut Down

Dear ListBot User:

We are sending this letter to inform you that effective Aug. 20, 2001, we are discontinuing the bCentral ListBot service. ListBot has become a very popular free service, and we've been pleased to offer this valuable tool to both consumers and business users. As a provider of services for small and medium-sized businesses, our main goal is the continual improvement of services to meet the growing needs of business users. To achieve this goal, we have launched the new List Builder service, an enhanced e-mail marketing tool that will take the place of ListBot.

The next few paragraphs detailed how they were offering a new "enhanced service" for a fee.  When they took over the free ListBot service, I knew that it was only a matter of time before they tried to turn it into a profit center.  It is really sad for me to see the Web, what was once an place for free and open information exchange, merged, bought out and commercialized into nothing more than a fee-based environment.

We have moved our list to Topica, a service similar to the "old" ListBot.  However, in this age of mergers and acquisitions, Topica was recently purchased by Yahoo.  It is probably only a matter of time before we will be looking for a new service or solution.  I am open to suggestions!

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.