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by ksaj 2222 days ago
Ironically this is almost exactly how it was done in the 90's. Listserv is patented apparently, but there were a few different discussion list methods available at the time. They were all pretty similar in operation, and the differences mostly amounted to maintenance. If I recall correctly, Smail had a super-easy way to manage discussion lists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_mailing_list

Several lists still exist. They're just not as common today as they used to be. I subscribe to some mailing lists for Lisp, NetLOGO and Artificial Life - all subjects that were pretty typical topic areas for 90's mail lists.

2 comments

> Listserv is patented apparently

not patented, but trademarked (the "T" in USPTO), so it's just the name "Listserv", see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LISTSERV#Trademark

A whole several? Are you sure?