I've been wrong before, but my guess is that at least 99% of regular autoresponder users do that.

Personally, I avoid broadcasts whenever possible, for a big variety of reasons, including but not limited to these ...

(i) It's very rare that I want everyone on a list to get the same information at the same time, regardless of how long they've been there and where they are in the series;

(ii) Subscribers in many niches have told me in the past that they don't like "obvious broadcasts" because (a) they interrupt continuity, and (b) they make the sender look more like a marketer and less like a trusted provider of valuable information;

(iii) It interfers with "subscriber expectation". It's really important, when opting people in, to set their expectations, and tell them exactly what they're going to receive and when. This dramatically increases open-rates and click-through rates. Sending "broadcasts" makes that very difficult;

(iv) To me, it feels like "being in a hurry" and "aiming for quick sales" - exactly the things I like to avoid, because I earn far more in the long run by avoiding that.

Key concept: interrupting continuity with an obvious promotion of something is really a much bigger deal than many people realise.

It makes you look desperate to sell, and to many subscribers, understandably, that comes across very negatively and ruins your credibility and their trust.

The people who imagine that isn't a big deal are typically those to whom open-rates of 25%/30% are acceptable, perhaps partly because they have little awareness of customer perception of - for example - passing off a commissionable product-launch as "news".

For most people, a combination of both is the way to go.

Alexa makes some good points in post #2.

I will add that a major advantage of an AR series is that all of the people get the messages. When you do a broadcast today with your list of 500. Those 500 are the only ones who see it.

So 3 months from now when your list is 2,000. If you want to direct your subscribers attention to that product/service again, you must broadcast it out to the list again. Now you have sent the same content to 25% of your list again.

Broadcasts are better for time sensitive stuff than general information or recommendations that will likely be just as relevant 6 months from now as they are today.

If I am sending a course or if you are going on the freebie list .. a series .. to a point.

If it is a JV or Affiliate list, there will be enough of a series to get the general information out but broadcast is the main thing.

Most AR allow to send a broadcast out to a single list or list 1.. 3.. 7 and not your list database alone.

An "auto-responder" is an email address with a bot at the other end that answers emails sent to it. That is why it is called an "auto-responder." It has nothing to do with ezine subscriptions. It is a technology that disappeared almost entirely in the nineties.

Ezines have also almost disappeared due to the spam problem. They are certainly not common among actual online businesses.

This is 2012. Get with the program. Do you see an ezine subscribe box on Google.com, Yahoo.com, eBay.com, Twitter.com, Facebook.com or ANY other player? Do you see them on ProFlowers.com, Cars.com, Schwans.com, ReMax.com or any minor player?

Do you see them ANYWHERE except scam and spam web-sites? I can only think of one site that isn't a scammer or spammer who still uses an opt-in ezine as part of his marketing efforts. He is a famous author. As a marketer, he is very small potatoes. You probably have never even heard of him.

The only list that matters is the customer list.

If auto-responders or even ezine opt-in marketing still worked, then every major player would use them. None do. That's not because the multi-million (and often multi-billion) dollar companies hire stupid people. It's because they are annoying, used mostly by spammers and scammers, and simply don't work!