1. Make squeeze page offering freebie on Internet marketing/make money online subject.
2. Get traffic (free/paid)
3. Promote paid offers, get $$$
4. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum
Same shit over and over and over again, these guys literally don't know anything else but to build a list full of newbies who get sucked in a vicious cycle of buying new worthless stuff all the time.
It DOES work though, I'm personally not making a lot of money from my IM list as I don't do WSOs or even adswaps - but some money pours in every now and then, it's just numbers game really, the bigger the list, the more chances to make a sale and profit.