A lot of my non technical friends use Google Groups. Other than a few extra drop downs during set-up, it seems to me that there's literally no functional differ

A lot of my non technical friends use Google Groups. Other than a few extra drop downs during set-up, it seems to me that there's literally no functional difference in the two services. I don't know how they can blatantly lie and tell buyers that they're better off with their $10/month service over the free Google Groups, but they seem to be getting away with it. Because they're 37 Signals and everything else they make is amazing.