The disadvantage is that you'll get a list of "freebie seekers", who is not necessarily looking for something to pay for. So, how can you still monetize such a list? One way is to spam your list with offers, for instance, of affiliate products. This might bring you mailing list a sale or two, but you'll also get a lot of un-subscriptions. Many of the big gurus use this method, and they make money, but they already have thousands on their list, and they can afford to lose a couple of hundreds each time. You cannot afford that, when you're starting out. A couple of hundreds might be all you have on your list, so there's not way you should risk losing those subscribers. In my experience, you can make money from a list of freebie seekers. You just have mailing list to know what to offer them. I'd tried several things, and finally found out what is working. First of all, you should keep giving them freebies. Write content, and send it out to your list regularly. One of my Danish lists is subscribed to get tips about the computer, the Internet, and home pages. I send them five tips per week. Or rather, I send them an appetizer to five tips, and they get a mailing list link to the homepage to read the rest of the tip. On the homepage, I have AdSense ads, and those make me an extremely good living.