"Brian-Gaff" <
bri...@blueyonder.co.uk> writes:
> Hmm, well maybe somebody, considering all this talk of censorship of the
> web, should try to put the news about these groups about a bit more then.
Well, a lot of ISPs in the US stopped providing Usenet access circa 2008/2009.
I don't know what the international situation is like. Maybe it is similar?
That's what killed this group, IMHO.
So now, a lot of people who would want Usenet only have a couple
options.
1. Sign up with one of the pay-to-play Usenet providers. There are
quite a few. The main reason people sign up with pay-to-play providers
is to read binary groups. Sad. Usenet is a very poor means of
distributing binaries.
2. Sign up with one of the free text-only servers. There aren't many.
The ones I know of are Mozarella, Eternal September, and Albasani.
Last time I checked, Eternal September required a captcha.
I use Albasani.
None of these is all that widely known.
Contrast this with the old days, where most ISPs provided an NNTP
server, and all you needed to get onto Usenet was a client. Those were
good days. Too bad they probably won't come back.
Usenet was never censored, but a combination of external factors have
been gradually choking the life out of it for years.
I'd love to see a resurgence of text-mode discussion groups, though.
-- Chris