And then what? Stamps?

The more time passes, the more Whitelisting companies appear on the market, each granting whitelisting services to a given number ISPs.

What bothers me now is that it's more and more looking like a tax paying system.

My point is, should we consider whitelisting as a seal of quality, then one certification SHOULD be enough to demonstrate your good practices and the quality of your broadcast.

Problem is more and more ISPs sign up with (different) whitelist systems. Should you want to be transversely whitelisted on all (or most) ISPs, then you have to pay for 3-4 different whitelist systems.

My concern is that email marketing is the highest ROI direct marketing vector since the costs are very low and the revenue very high.
By increasing the broadcasting costs through all these additional costs, aren't we damaging the business itself?

What is the real value of these whitelists anyway? Isn't it true that if you match all the requirements to be whitelisted, you probably don't need to be whitelisted anymore?

If you are a high level email marketing ace, then whitelisting will be some kind of insurance on your deliverability (along with some side benefits like displaying the images and activating the links without any action needed from the user).

I'm really hope this whitelist frenzy will end one day...