Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > comp.os.linux.advocacy > #688938

Re: How To Improve This Group

Show all headers | View raw

On 4/12/25 19:06, Borax Man wrote:
> On 2025-04-12, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:
>> On 4/12/25 02:40, Borax Man wrote:
>>> On 2025-04-11, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:
> [ * snip * ]
>>>> On 2025-04-11 09:44, Borax Man wrote:
>>>>
>>>> In the case of NNTP, American Congress seems to have been succesful in
>>>> killing most of it. If I remember correctly, some poorly informed
>>>> politician had no idea what was going on on Usenet or even how to use
>>>> it, but he felt that he could complain about its contents anyway. As a
>>>> result, ISPs stopped providing a news server. The result is that those
>>>> of us on Usenet are usually people who lived in the before times and are
>>>> aware of its existence. I doubt that people under the age of 40 even
>>>> know what a Usenet is. As for IRC, it is never mentioned to users of the
>>>> Internet. Few web sites talk about it and ISPs themselves don't even
>>>> mention its existence. After all, there is no money in it, so why would
>>>> they bother. Instead, people are told about things like Discord and
>>>> TikTok because there is a way of monetizing a user's presence on those
>>>> sites. Once again, the people on IRC are usually Linux users who venture
>>>> onto their distribution of choice's support channel, or people from he
>>>> before times who are aware of its existence.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Yes, I remember my ISP carried Usenet, and cancelled it.  I'm in
>>> Australia though, so it may be for different reasons.
>>
>> Depending on when it happened, it was probably caused by the decision of
>> the American Congress. Much like how the United States and other
>> countries in the West were convinced that Mortal Kombat and Night Trap
>> were going to traumatize a generation and we needed video game ratings,
>> they were convinced that Usenet was the center of all degeneracy. People
>> should not be surprised that countries in the Five Eyes Alliance all
>> behave similarly, which is why both Canadians and Americans should be
>> concerned that Brits are currently being arrested and sentenced for
>> sharing memes on social media.
>>
> 
>>> It could simply
>>> have been too much bother.  It would have taken a lot of bandwidth and
>>> storage for something most customers weren't aware of.  It was sad to
>>> see it go, and I do wish they maintained it, but from a business point
>>> of view, I do understand.  They cancelled it mid or late 2000s, or
>>> possible later.
>>>
>>> I suppose then it is our job to mention these technologies and make
>>> people aware of alternatives to the privacy traps and algorthmic
>>> straight jackets that more modern alternatives hoist on thier
>>> victims... um... users...
>>>
>>> I set these up for my own personal clique, but they're not much into
>>> communicating anyway, or are simply put or, or confused, by any client
>>> that is not web based or an "app".  Unfortunately, I've not been able to
>>> find a good NNTP web frontend that allows only encrypted connections.
>>> Maybe I'll get to work on modifying an existing one to make it the way I
>>> think it should be.
>>
>> I think that the bandwidth argument is an excuse. Even the "hotbed of
>> degeneracy and piracy" argument is a weak one. In reality, our Western
>> governments didn't like the fact that Usenet is an uncontrolled
>> environment where you can truly say what you think and discuss topics
>> that they consider to be taboo. They don't believe in freedom of speech,
>> so they are ready to take away any platform which protects it.
>>
> 
> Given what has happened in the 2020s, and recently what has been exposed
> with regards to government meddling in Social Media, I think this is a
> credible hypothesis.  I think the storage and bandwidth would have
> contributed, if the ISP's were pressured, to not push back too much.
> There WERE a lot of binaries floating around, I do remember that.  Also,
> Usenet didn't have that much dissident political discussion on it, that
> I could see.  There was more to be found on Web Forums that Usenet, so
> it could have been a target, but I don't think it was lucrative a target
> as you might think.

To give you an idea on the bandwidth argument, I bought a subscription 
to BlockNews more than a decade ago based on Jeff Relf (God rest his 
soul)'s recommendation. I believe it provided me with 3GB of data. To 
this day, I haven't reached 3GB, and I post a lot. Of course, I don't 
use binaries either. If they were concerned that people were using too 
much bandwidth, they were free to remove all access to alt.binaries.*, 
they didn't need to touch the discussion forums themselves.

Speaking of BlockNews, I don't believe I'll ever reach that 3GB limit 
anyway since the news server has become an absolute joke now. You can't 
subscribe to any forum without the server feeling the need to download 
_all_ posts to it since the beginning of time, regardless of what you 
set. It also takes forever to download them. I've told BlockNews of the 
problem, but they don't see the issue.

-- 
God be with you,

CrudeSausage
John 14:6

Back to comp.os.linux.advocacy | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread

Thread

How To Improve This Group Farley Flud <ff@linux.rocks> - 2025-03-27 19:49 +0000
  Re: How To Improve This Group Joel <joelcrump@gmail.com> - 2025-03-27 16:01 -0400
  Re: How To Improve This Group vallor <vallor@cultnix.org> - 2025-03-27 20:23 +0000
    Re: How To Improve This Group pothead <pothead@snakebite.com> - 2025-03-28 00:45 +0000
    Re: How To Improve This Group Chris Ahlstrom <OFeem1987@teleworm.us> - 2025-03-28 11:30 -0400
  Re: How To Improve This Group candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> - 2025-04-09 19:00 +0000
    Re: How To Improve This Group Farley Flud <ff@linux.rocks> - 2025-04-09 20:55 +0000
      Re: How To Improve This Group candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> - 2025-04-09 23:40 +0000
        Re: How To Improve This Group Joel <joelcrump@gmail.com> - 2025-04-09 19:47 -0400
        Re: How To Improve This Group CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> - 2025-04-09 20:02 -0400
          Re: How To Improve This Group Borax Man <rotflol2@hotmail.com> - 2025-04-10 12:58 +0000
            Re: How To Improve This Group Joel <joelcrump@gmail.com> - 2025-04-10 09:02 -0400
            Re: How To Improve This Group CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> - 2025-04-10 09:48 -0400
              Re: How To Improve This Group rek2 hispagatos <rek2@hispagatos.meow.org.invalid> - 2025-04-10 14:01 +0000
                Re: How To Improve This Group Joel <joelcrump@gmail.com> - 2025-04-10 10:04 -0400
                Re: How To Improve This Group rek2 hispagatos <rek2@hispagatos.meow.org.invalid> - 2025-04-10 16:36 +0000
                Re: How To Improve This Group CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> - 2025-04-10 10:13 -0400
                Re: How To Improve This Group rek2 hispagatos <rek2@hispagatos.meow.org.invalid> - 2025-04-10 16:26 +0000
              Re: How To Improve This Group Borax Man <rotflol2@hotmail.com> - 2025-04-11 07:02 +0000
                Re: How To Improve This Group Joel <joelcrump@gmail.com> - 2025-04-11 03:06 -0400
                Re: How To Improve This Group CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> - 2025-04-11 08:49 -0400
                Re: How To Improve This Group Borax Man <rotflol2@hotmail.com> - 2025-04-11 13:44 +0000
                Re: How To Improve This Group CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> - 2025-04-11 11:22 -0400
                Re: How To Improve This Group rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2025-04-11 17:40 +0000
                Re: How To Improve This Group CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> - 2025-04-11 19:30 -0400
                Re: How To Improve This Group rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2025-04-12 02:59 +0000
                Re: How To Improve This Group CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> - 2025-04-12 08:00 -0400
                Re: How To Improve This Group Borax Man <rotflol2@hotmail.com> - 2025-04-12 06:40 +0000
                Re: How To Improve This Group CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> - 2025-04-12 08:55 -0400
                Re: How To Improve This Group Borax Man <rotflol2@hotmail.com> - 2025-04-12 23:06 +0000
                Re: How To Improve This Group vallor <vallor@cultnix.org> - 2025-04-13 00:38 +0000
                Re: How To Improve This Group CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> - 2025-04-13 08:47 -0400
          Re: How To Improve This Group candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> - 2025-04-10 18:00 +0000
            Re: How To Improve This Group CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> - 2025-04-11 08:42 -0400
        Re: How To Improve This Group Farley Flud <fsquared@fsquared.linux> - 2025-04-10 11:08 +0000
          Re: How To Improve This Group Borax Man <rotflol2@hotmail.com> - 2025-04-10 13:03 +0000
            Re: How To Improve This Group Farley Flud <ff@linux.rocks> - 2025-04-10 20:06 +0000
              Re: How To Improve This Group Borax Man <rotflol2@hotmail.com> - 2025-04-11 07:10 +0000
                Re: How To Improve This Group CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> - 2025-04-11 08:50 -0400
                Re: How To Improve This Group Borax Man <rotflol2@hotmail.com> - 2025-04-11 12:58 +0000
                Re: How To Improve This Group CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> - 2025-04-11 09:18 -0400
                Re: How To Improve This Group Farley Flud <fsquared@fsquared.linux> - 2025-04-11 15:16 +0000
                Re: How To Improve This Group rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2025-04-11 17:46 +0000
                Re: How To Improve This Group Stéphane CARPENTIER <sc@fiat-linux.fr> - 2025-04-12 09:41 +0000
                Re: How To Improve This Group Borax Man <rotflol2@hotmail.com> - 2025-04-12 10:17 +0000
                Re: How To Improve This Group CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> - 2025-04-12 09:02 -0400
                Re: How To Improve This Group Borax Man <rotflol2@hotmail.com> - 2025-04-12 22:58 +0000
                Re: How To Improve This Group CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> - 2025-04-13 08:44 -0400
                Re: How To Improve This Group rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2025-04-13 19:15 +0000
                Re: How To Improve This Group Borax Man <rotflol2@hotmail.com> - 2025-04-14 11:52 +0000
                Re: How To Improve This Group rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2025-04-11 17:42 +0000
                Re: How To Improve This Group bill_wilson <bill_w@aol.com> - 2025-04-11 14:34 -0400
                Re: How To Improve This Group Joel <joelcrump@gmail.com> - 2025-04-11 14:38 -0400
                Re: How To Improve This Group % <pursent100@gmail.com> - 2025-04-11 11:41 -0700
                Re: How To Improve This Group Joel <joelcrump@gmail.com> - 2025-04-11 14:51 -0400
                Re: How To Improve This Group % <pursent100@gmail.com> - 2025-04-11 12:12 -0700
                Re: How To Improve This Group Diego Garcia <dg@linux.rocks> - 2025-04-11 20:47 +0000
          Re: How To Improve This Group Stéphane CARPENTIER <sc@fiat-linux.fr> - 2025-04-12 09:34 +0000
            Re: How To Improve This Group Farley Flud <ff@linux.rocks> - 2025-04-12 19:58 +0000
              Re: How To Improve This Group % <pursent100@gmail.com> - 2025-04-12 13:07 -0700

csiph-web