AOL and Yahoo are goin' postal

AOL and Yahoo have decided to start charging a nominal fee for businesses that send out large numbers of emails. Under the guise of protecting its customers from spammers, this will allow the two ISP giants to rake in large amounts of cash. It will also give preferential treatment to those companies that pay the ransom fee; meaning that your legitimate emails from nonpaying companies won't be treated the same.

As much as I hate spam, this is not just a slippery slope; its a cliff. I plan on changing my email provider as soon as someone sends me an invite for Google's gmail.

UPDATE: I just wanted to thank Mike N. and Gordon for their invitations for gmail. Thanks guys!