Instead of reading mail as if it were news, it would make a lot more sense to just have news. Mailing lists are best for one-way mass communication about what your favorite band's next gig is and for those college students who have a hard enough time just using a web browser. I think considering that we are all using Linux, we are at least computer-savvy enough to use a news client.
I don't care which is used as long as there is a way to subscribe to it and have it sent to me via email. I don't want to hassle with Usenet, which IMO is a pain, but it shouldn't be any big deal to make a mail-based mirror or vice versa. The only real problem with that is that it can become easy to post duplicate messages. I use something in the area of 600 mailing lists though and have no problems with them in general. Usenet based things can be annoying because of client limitations, lack of decent news servers, and the general problem of Usenet being more of a pull technology than a push technology.
