Re: AT&T Usenet Netnews Service Shutting Down
WRATH
> Please note that on or around July 15, 2009, AT&T will no longer be
> offering access to the Usenet netnews service. If you wish to continue
> reading Usenet newsgroups, access is available through third-party
> vendors.
>
> Posted only internally to AT&T Usenet Servers.
Just another reason why AT&T sucks. Less service for more money. That's
okay though...I doubt people that use AT&T even know what usenet is.
Here's hoping AT&T dies a well deserved death.
WRATH
KStahl
I'm not sure why people expect USENET to part of their internet access
for free. It is really no different then pay-for-use web sites. If you
want the service then you pay for it. Otherwise you go elsewhere for
discussion forums.
EricF
When I subscribed to Bellsouth - now AT&T - Usenet was included. I think
Usenet was included with every major ISP until a year ago or so. It was like
email. It was part of the service.
I agree with Wrath, Oh, everyone else was dropping Usenet so I guess judging
them too harshly about that isn't fair. But AT&T outsourced their email
service to Yahoo and made a mess of that. Less service, cost was high. I left.
Eric
4poster
when it took over my ISP/telephony providor. The federal government took
AT&T to court for antitrust action and the giant was forced to divest as a
remedy for its monopolizing activities, but under a lax oversight, the giant
has managed to re-build its former monopoly and to institue all the evils of
the same.
Newsgroups were not only provided by BellSouth, but subscribers were
encouraged to take advantage of the Usenet and it wasn't "free" any more
than any service is really "free", but the consumer pays for it as part of
the useage fee, so Wrath is correct in pointing out that AT&T disregarded
the fact that the Usenet was part of the Internet package for several years.
"KStahl" <kts...@yohaa.com> wrote in message
news:8Q_Am.22387$_X.1...@news.usenetserver.com...
Spiritus
Wrath, you are spot on. Maybe some BellSouth subscribers never read
the promise AT&T made to keep the service as it was before the
takeover,
a promise it simply never intended to keep. AT&T spends millions in TV
advertizing for PR asvantage, so naturally it must make up for
its extravagance somewhere and what better place to "rob Peter
to pay Paul" than inits customer base?
KStahl
Ok, you do make a good point there. But providing access to USENET
probably does take some servers that they don't want to have any more
and so they are now saying that if you want USENET then you must buy the
service elsewhere or go with google groups - but the latter means that
you can't use a newsreader of course.
EricF
You probably have a point there, though when they got rid of the binary
groups, I suspect they freed up a bunch of servers. But my guess is there is
such a small number of Usenet users that they really don't care if we all went
away - compared to the cost of managing the product.
Eric
KStahl
>>>>the service then you pay for it. Otherwise you go elsewhere for discussion
>>>>forums.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>Ok, you do make a good point there. But providing access to USENET
>>probably does take some servers that they don't want to have any more
>>and so they are now saying that if you want USENET then you must buy the
>>service elsewhere or go with google groups - but the latter means that
>>you can't use a newsreader of course.
>
>
> You probably have a point there, though when they got rid of the binary
> groups, I suspect they freed up a bunch of servers. But my guess is there is
> such a small number of Usenet users that they really don't care if we all went
> away - compared to the cost of managing the product.
>
> Eric
That's true. If you look at the entire population that uses USENET it is
definitely a very small subset of all internet users. We are dinosaurts.
Back when I started using usenet I was also using whosis, finger and
gopher on a regular basis as well as reading email one page at a time.
Of course back then there were a total of 250 web sites world wide.