Enduring Power of Mailing Lists

The Internet has a way of reinventing old ideas. From Usenet in the 1980s to today’s Substack newsletters, mailing lists have endured. While social networks rise and fall, while apps fragment attention, the humble mailing list remains the most resilient backbone of online communities.

From Usenet to Email Threads

Usenet in the early 1980s wasn’t technically email, but it felt close. It was a distributed bulletin board where people subscribed to groups and received posts, such as messages. Then came LISTSERV and Majordomo, software that let communities manage true email lists. Suddenly, a group of scientists, hobbyists, or coders could stay in touch without centralized control.

Mailing lists weren’t glamorous, but they were effective. The Linux kernel itself was born and still thrives on mailing lists. If you wanted to follow the conversations of open-source giants like Linus Torvalds, you subscribed to the right list. Your Inbox gets everything, from debates to patches to flame wars.

Communities That Lived in the Inbox

Unlike forums or web portals, mailing lists meet people where they already spend their time: in their inbox. You didn’t need to check a new website or download a new app. Every update, every reply came to you. This ubiquity gave mailing lists an advantage that no “walled garden” community could match.

The early Internet tribes—programmers, activists, academics, artists—built their culture on lists. The WELL, one of the first online communities, relied heavily on email notifications. Even today, groups as niche as vintage camera collectors or as mainstream as political campaigns rely on lists to mobilize, discuss, and organize.

The Newsletter Renaissance

Fast forward to the 2010s. Social media fatigue set in. Algorithms decided what you saw and what you didn’t. Writers and creators grew frustrated by platform lock-in. Enter the newsletter renaissance. Platforms like TinyLetter, Mailchimp, and later Substack reframed mailing lists as a way for individuals to “own their audience.”

A newsletter wasn’t just a mass email anymore. It was a relationship. Writers offered commentary, curation, or essays straight to the reader’s inbox. Substack made this model profitable, letting writers charge subscriptions while keeping distribution simple. Suddenly, the oldest Internet medium felt brand new.

Why Mailing Lists Persist

There are three enduring reasons mailing lists never die.

1. Direct connection. Email is universal. You don’t need to join a specific platform, install an app, or accept push notifications. A message goes straight from sender to recipient.
2. Portability. If a platform disappears, you can still export your email list. Unlike followers on Twitter (now X) or subscribers on YouTube, an email address list belongs to you. This ownership has made mailing lists a safe haven against platform risk.
3. Asynchronous conversation. Mailing lists allow discussions to unfold at a human pace. Unlike chatrooms or social feeds, threads can last for days or weeks. This slower rhythm encourages depth over hot takes.

Mailing Lists as Infrastructure

The hidden truth is that mailing lists are not just communication tools, but also an infrastructure. Open-source projects, academic collaborations, political organizing, and even venture capital deal flow have relied on lists. They provide transparency: anyone subscribed can follow the archive. They provide accountability: words are preserved in searchable threads.

Some of the Internet’s most important cultural and technical debates took place not on Twitter, but on email lists. Standards bodies like the IETF and W3C depend on them to hash out the protocols that keep the Internet itself running.

Lessons for Builders Today

For founders and creators, the history of mailing lists serves as a reminder that distribution often beats novelty. Building the next great social platform is a risky endeavor. Building a mailing list is durable. Communities outlast apps when they are rooted in direct, portable, and permission-based communication.

Even in 2025, when AI curates feeds and apps compete for attention, an email remains a personal touch. You open it in the same inbox as a message from a colleague or family member. That proximity gives mailing lists an intimacy that no algorithm can replicate.

The Backbone That Refuses to Break

The Internet loves to chase trends: Web 2.0, Web3, social audio, virtual reality, and now AI-driven feeds. Yet through all these cycles, mailing lists persist. They don’t require hype. They work.

Every era has rediscovered them:

• Academics in the 1980s.
• Hackers and open-source communities in the 1990s.
• Bloggers and early web publishers in the 2000s.
• Newsletter writers in the 2010s.
• Independent creators and niche communities today.

It’s worth asking whether the next “new thing” will be less a revolution and more a rebranding of the same pattern: direct messages, delivered reliably, with ownership intact.

Mailing lists may lack the glamour of shiny apps, but they have something more valuable: permanence. In an Internet that forgets quickly, the inbox remembers. Communities that opt for mailing lists prioritize durability over distraction. That’s why the format, in one form or another, will outlast every trend.