It is was nice while it lasted- or was it? How much did we really like those canned email responses informing us that so and so was on vacation or out of town on business and "thank you so much for your message". We knew they didn't really write it or even send it. We were literally talking to a machine! Or how about when you took one of your app vendors up on their pledge of quality customer service and sent in that complaint or question only to receive the warmly reassuring autoresponse confirming that your query had been received and placed in a pile somewhere and someone would be getting back to you "at their earliest convenience"? Oh and by the way, don't try to respond to this email because the machine doesn't receive replies.

If autoresponders hadn't been an unintended victim of the rules passed to control the viral spread of spam, they would have died a natural death on their own not much later on. Any business using autoresponders these days risks someone sending other people's email addresses to their autoresponder. When those people receive the business autoresponse there is the possibility of a claim of spamming. And you better be sure that you provide a way for someone to stop receiving messages if they don't want them.
All in all, autoresponders have had their fifteen minutes of fame. Everything about the internet evolves quickly. Email messaging is no exception and that can be a good thing.