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Re: How To Improve This Group

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On Sat, 12 Apr 2025 23:06:43 -0000 (UTC), Borax Man <rotflol2@hotmail.com>
wrote in <slrnvvlsg1.j0v.rotflol2@geidiprime.bvh>:

> 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.

As someone who used to administer a netnews server, I can tell you
that -- at least in our case -- the decision to shut down the server
was purely business.  We had very few users using the service, and
it was a significant cost to update and maintain.

For a while we outsourced it, then finally pulled the plug.

We kept a shell server going for longer, but last June we shut that down,
also -- only a tiny percentage of our users used it, and there are
better-maintained shell servers out on the Net.

-- 
-v System76 Thelio Mega v1.1 x86_64 NVIDIA RTX 3090 Ti
   OS: Linux 6.14.2 Release: Mint 22.1 Mem: 258G
   "All I need to know I learned from my cat."

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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

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