Which real world do you live in? Real businesses spend a good percentage of their efforts in cutting costs. And if they have a large consumer base they push newsletters too, then yes, as an agency, I can tell you that a lot of clients will make the switch.
There a bunch of open source self-hosted newsletter systems doing well (oh, and they're mostly subpar). I like the direction in which sendy is heading and with the amazon ses edge to it, its a great great idea. If sendy would throw in a few more features like multi-user login and access control, I'll make the switch and will convince a few of my clients too.
> On hacker news, people seem to care about pinching pennies on marketing emails, but in the real world where people have real businesses that make real money, the cheapest is not going to win the fight.
Oh, tell that to envato[1]. Most companies don't have deep pockets and unlimited budgets.
[1] http://graphicriver.net/ http://photodune.net/ People seem to buy stuff there even though istcokphoto exists.
On hacker news, people seem to care about pinching pennies on marketing emails, but in the real world where people have real businesses that make real money, the cheapest is not going to win the fight.