A thought prompted by seeing instances growing and struggling to have enough resources. Then and now, people in groups trying to communicate something. Hardware became incredibly faster over decades, storage became incredibly more huge, and software bloat kept pace?
Usenet is still there. IMO, we should be trying to funnel the most techy users among us over there and maybe it could be resurrected for discussion once again. Right now it is more or less users talking to themselves.
My recollection is that access to Usenet requires a paid feed. Anyone can spin up a Lemmy server if they are willing to deal with the administrative hassle.
well, you can use google groups web interface but that sucks. there is also the eternal september free text access. for premium access blocknews has 5 gigs for 2 bucks which will last forever if you are just reading text groups. 2 bucks (or the free options) are a lot less than what the server would cost to run a lemmy instance.
Yes, but google is paying for the newsfeed. You don’t have to pay to access the fediverse.
I had the feeling Usenet today is like lobste.rs and you need to know someone to participate, and I never know anyone. (I remember Usenet from back in the day, but was just a lurker.)
Know someone to get on or know someone to talk back and forth with? I mean, you could use google groups interface which is awful but still sort of an on ramp to it (and free). Plenty of usenet services out there though. you could pay a buck or two to blocknews.net for a few gigs and now you have “premium” access. discussion groups will take a long time to eat up 5 gigs. the real problem is sorting through to find the active groups not to mention finding decent nntp newsreader software for your platform. actually someone just posted a few days back in alt.fan.usenet some decently active discussion groups. got to start somewhere i suppose.
alt.culture.usenet: alt.fan.usenet: alt.obituaries: alt.privacy: alt.tv.simpsons: ba.broadcast: comp.ai: comp.arch: comp.compilers: comp.dcom.telecom: comp.infosystems.gemini: comp.infosystems.gopher: comp.lang.c++: comp.lang.c: comp.lang.forth: comp.lang.misc: comp.lang.python.announce: comp.lang.python: comp.lang.raspberry-pi: comp.lang.tcl: comp.misc: comp.mobile.android: comp.mobile.misc: comp.os.cpm: comp.os.linux.announce: comp.os.linux.misc: comp.risks: comp.sys.apple2: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action: comp.text.tex: comp.unix.shell: gnu.emacs.help: misc.legal.moderated: misc.taxes.moderated: news.admin.moderation: news.announce.important: news.announce.newgroups: news.groups.proposals: news.groups: news.software.readers: rec.arts.drwho: rec.arts.movies.current-films: rec.arts.sf.tv: rec.arts.sf.written: rec.autos.sport.f1: rec.aviation.soaring: rec.bicycles.tech: rec.food.cooking: rec.games.backgammon: rec.music.beatles: rec.music.classical.recordings: rec.radio.amateur.antenna: rec.radio.amateur.boatanchors: rec.radio.amateur.equipment: rec.radio.amateur.homebrew: rec.radio.amateur.misc: rec.radio.amateur.moderated: rec.radio.amateur.policy: rec.radio.amateur.space: rec.radio.info: rec.radio.shortwave: rec.sport.rowing: rec.woodworking: sci.astro: sci.electronics.design: sci.electronics.repair: sci.logic: sci.physics.relativity: sci.physics.research: talk.origins: uk.comp.sys.mac: uk.radio.amateur.moderated: uk.rec.sheds: uk.sci.weather:Haven’t paid close attention, and just knew that when I see mention of Usenet, there’s all talk about invites nowadays.
Usenet is mainly used for pirating these days. The invites are probably referring to indexers which are sites that post nzb files that tell your Usenet client which posts to download for a certain movie/tv show/ etc.
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