Is gopher booming now?

[Mateusz Viste]

Hello Gophersphere,

I recently created this:
gopher://gopher.viste.fr/1/ogup

After a few days of collecting data, I see that there are around 400
gopher servers in the world. Last time I counted (few years ago), the
gopherspace was totaling some 100 online servers.

Am I confused, or is the gopherspace expanding?

Mateusz
--
gopher://gopher.viste.fr

[Bob Alberti]

I think the degree to which the Web has been gamed, monetized, and monitored
is feeding a desire for a "simpler" protocol which has not been so abused.
So it wouldn't surprise me if there is a resurgence of interest in Gopher.

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Bob Alberti <alb...@sdf.lonestar.org> wrote:

> Mateusz Viste <mat...@wont.tell> wrote:
>>
>> After a few days of collecting data, I see that there are around 400
>> gopher servers in the world. Last time I counted (few years ago), the
>> gopherspace was totaling some 100 online servers.
>>
>> Am I confused, or is the gopherspace expanding?
>

> I think the degree to which the Web has been gamed, monetized, and monitored
> is feeding a desire for a "simpler" protocol which has not been so abused.
> So it wouldn't surprise me if there is a resurgence of interest in Gopher.

Why isn't that happening for Usenet as well?

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

[Mats]

Good question. I always liked the simplicity of Usenet.

[m...@phor.ic]

>> >> After a few days of collecting data, I see that there are around 400
>> >> gopher servers in the world. Last time I counted (few years ago), the
>> >> gopherspace was totaling some 100 online servers.
>> >>
>> >> Am I confused, or is the gopherspace expanding?
>> >
>> > I think the degree to which the Web has been gamed, monetized, and monitored
>> > is feeding a desire for a "simpler" protocol which has not been so abused.
>> > So it wouldn't surprise me if there is a resurgence of interest in Gopher.
>>
>> Why isn't that happening for Usenet as well?
>

>Good question. I always liked the simplicity of Usenet.

Wait... detecting a bump in usenet...

Nevermind, just some anomalous background noise.

<meta4 resumes deep slumber>

[FlipChip(tm)]

Gopher is good for ya, mmmkay?

As I observe it Gopher will get proper use after the madness of http/html
madness.

I'd like to have plug-in that automagically exports proper Gopher files
from WP, Ghost and such.

Not many years from now and I think we see a lot of use for Gopher.

Usenet is completely different beast after all ...

[Héctor Abreu]

Actually, I've read that Usenet is not doing that bad. It's just that
binaries attract more people than text newsgroups like this one we're
posting to.
--
Héctor Abreu

[FlipChip(tm)]

Binaries have always been the thing that moves people. Lately it seems
that more people are finding Usenet nowadays just for binaries.

Unfortunately those antisocialsites have had devestating impact on forums
and usenet and such. But things looks brighter as people are figuring out
that there are really services that are not sucking the life out of you.

I think we see growth in these as more and more people who really seek
information and value from net are starting to move away from the madness
of these parasitic sites.

Gopher is wonderful tool to connect and share without all that invading
marketing that we see all around web nowadays.

[Jackson Caulen]

Mats wrote:
> Good question. I always liked the simplicity of Usenet.

I can't speak for others, but I came to Usenet specifically because
I wanted to engage in some good conversation but wanted to avoid
all the ad-driven mess of the Web along with all the shouting and
so forth.

I miss the graphics. I love eye candy, but ignoring unlikeables is
much easier and I don't feel what I can only describe as the
"cognitive weight" of dealing with posts online.

Bringing this back to Gopher, I think what will help is the
building of apps that run on top of the Gopher protocol that
people will like. For example, an app that perhaps uses the
Gopher protocol to reach a particular config file that then
lists Gopher locations for images. The app then displays a
slideshow or presentation.

I think one of the big problems of the Web turned out to be that
the browser was supposed to be an app riding on top of the HTTP
protocol, but ended up being the sole container for everything
else everyone wanted to do on the Web. It really consolidated
things in a big way and that may have contributed to a lot of the
"weight" of the web, so to speak.

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Jackson Caulen <noemai...@example.com> wrote:
> Mats wrote:
>> Good question. I always liked the simplicity of Usenet.
>
> I can't speak for others, but I came to Usenet specifically because
> I wanted to engage in some good conversation but wanted to avoid
> all the ad-driven mess of the Web along with all the shouting and
> so forth.
>
> I miss the graphics. I love eye candy, but ignoring unlikeables is
> much easier and I don't feel what I can only describe as the
> "cognitive weight" of dealing with posts online.

I just like to be able to choose my own interface instead of having
to find a browser that is compatible with the forum interface used
by the website (which in 99% of cases today means a browser that I
don't like (and my personal 1% case went offline a few weeks ago)),
_then_ be forced to learn and use that interface whether I like it or
not (and a new interface for every new forum).

With Usenet, as with Gopher, I can choose from a variety of software
all compatible with the vast majority of servers (without them all
using the same underlying "engines", as with web browsers). That
software can implement its own unique features, such as those to help
with "ignoring unlikeables" which not all web forum designers may
have implemented in their own software. Also keyboard navigation,
low resource usage, presentation configurability, are all much more
effectively implemented for Usenet and Gopher software than with the
web (where toying with such ideas inevitably leads to usability
issues with particular websites).

One other big advantage of Usenet is that you only need to connect
with one server, with one set of log-in details, instead of one for
each of countless web forums covering different topics, for which
it isn't practical to regularly check very many for new topics of
interest. All of which are also at risk of going down temporarily
or forever with no option to switch to another server and just pick
up where you left off as with Usenet.

That's one advantage not shared with Gopher, but then with Gopher
not requiring log-ins, it's less of an issue.

> Bringing this back to Gopher, I think what will help is the
> building of apps that run on top of the Gopher protocol that
> people will like. For example, an app that perhaps uses the
> Gopher protocol to reach a particular config file that then
> lists Gopher locations for images. The app then displays a
> slideshow or presentation.

Sounds like a Gopher client with an Add-Ons system. The risk
there is that someone will decide to set up their whole site as
a set of interconnecting slideshows just so that it looks pretty,
and Gopher clients that don't have the Add-On won't be able to view
it at all. In other words exactly what happened with Java and Flash
Add-Ons for the web.

But I don't think that would really happen, because most people
wanting to abuse it that way would have gone straight to the web in
the first place. Instead it would be just another fun play thing,
left alone in its own little corner, like Gohper is today as a whole
(maybe that's why it's expanding while Usenet is shrinking, Usenet
is just utilitarian, not "fun" - I don't know, I'm genuinely curious
about the question).

P.S. My personal preference is for well written HTML-only (no
scripts, little or no CSS) webpages, rather than Gopher. These
offer all the advantages of Gopher listed above, while adding
many things that I like about HTML. Unfortunately most web
designers (and all the commercial ones) no longer design web
pages this way. Using Gopher just forces designers into it, and
thereby creates an environment where users know that they won't
have to face the excesses of the modern web.

[Anson Carmichael]

Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>
> One other big advantage of Usenet is that you only need to connect
> with one server, with one set of log-in details, instead of one for
> each of countless web forums covering different topics, for which
> it isn't practical to regularly check very many for new topics of
> interest. All of which are also at risk of going down temporarily
> or forever with no option to switch to another server and just pick
> up where you left off as with Usenet.
>
> That's one advantage not shared with Gopher, but then with Gopher
> not requiring log-ins, it's less of an issue.
>

Very roughly speaking, I think Gopher mimics this by providing
links to other gopher sites so that accessing one site allows
traversal to others rather seamlessly.

I don't think I've ever used Gopher for accessing forums, however,
so Usenet still wins in the end, so to speak.

>
> Sounds like a Gopher client with an Add-Ons system. The risk
> there is that someone will decide to set up their whole site as
> a set of interconnecting slideshows just so that it looks pretty,
> and Gopher clients that don't have the Add-On won't be able to view
> it at all. In other words exactly what happened with Java and Flash
> Add-Ons for the web.

I suppose it could be Gopher with an Add-Ons system, but it could
also be just a purpose-specific client. I think what would save
Gopher from the scenario described above is a sense of development
culture. That is, making sure that "Gopher Apps" were not for
general purpose use. The slideshow idea makes sense because it
is a convenient way to share images via Gopher without downloading
each one individually by the user. This is a function that doesn't
currently exist (as far as I know), so it enhances the use of
Gopher without becoming the general purpose delivery system that
caused the browser to be such a problem.

>
> But I don't think that would really happen, because most people
> wanting to abuse it that way would have gone straight to the web in
> the first place. Instead it would be just another fun play thing,
> left alone in its own little corner, like Gohper is today as a whole
> (maybe that's why it's expanding while Usenet is shrinking, Usenet
> is just utilitarian, not "fun" - I don't know, I'm genuinely curious
> about the question).

I actually like Usenet. I wouldn't call it "fun" per se, but so far
it fulfills my requirements for satisfying that itch for conversation
without the hassle of the modern web.

>
> P.S. My personal preference is for well written HTML-only (no
> scripts, little or no CSS) webpages, rather than Gopher. These
> offer all the advantages of Gopher listed above, while adding
> many things that I like about HTML. Unfortunately most web
> designers (and all the commercial ones) no longer design web
> pages this way. Using Gopher just forces designers into it, and
> thereby creates an environment where users know that they won't
> have to face the excesses of the modern web.

Part of me wishes that HTML-as-document and HTML-as-app split into
two at some early point in history. That way there might have been
some more thought put into things before the web became that problem
that it is (well, by "The Web" I of course refer to particular sites
and the extensive user-tracking systems. There are plenty of
reasonable places on the Internet. It is just becoming a bit more
crowded with the other stuff.)

[Jason Nemrow]

This indicates the root of the big Internet problem - pushing protocols into usages for which they were never intended. Gopher is for quick, menu-driven, anonymous file download or display (special-purpose ftp) - HTTP is a request for and response with stateless html pages (documents) and unsecured files - Usenet is for topic-based mass-mailing (bulletin boards) - SMTP is for person-to-person messaging (emails). Each function has a protocol suited to it and you chose a server-client pair depending on your proposed usage.

Now, we see SMTP often being (very wastefully) used as a Usenet replacement. We also see HTTP being used for, well, EVERYTHING including stateful traffic for which it is completely unsuited - Massive overhead to track sessions that were never intended its design. Tim Berner-Lee should be a footnote in the computer world - present HTTP/HTML protocol usage bare no resemblance to his excellent concept.

I said it before - If you want to slap "add-ons" onto Gopher, do the universe a favor and write a efficient server/client pair, get a new port number assigned to it, and call it Frank or something unique. Please use Gopher for its basic use or just move on. Gopher is just Gopher and if it doesn't serve your purposes as is, create something new across the board - it's not as hard as you might think.

It is sad - the internet was reshaped into the web, the web was reshaped into Google, and now what was a network of networks is only a pipe to broadcast Youtube to billions of mindless consumers. I though we already created television (a far more efficient design for one-to-many basically one-way transmissions)! The network becomes yet another broadcast conduit. LONG LIVE TELNET!

[Jay Gelund]

Jason Nemrow wrote:
> Gopher is for quick, menu-driven, anonymous file download or display
> (special-purpose ftp)

> HTTP is a request for and response with stateless html pages
> (documents) and unsecured files

> Usenet is for topic-based mass-mailing (bulletin boards) -
> SMTP is for person-to-person messaging (emails).
> Each function has a protocol suited to it and you chose a server-client
> pair depending on your proposed usage.

I think that might be why XML was created - to make something more
suited to the world that was coming (stateful transactions, UI
description language, etc)

>
> Now, we see SMTP often being (very wastefully) used as a Usenet
> replacement. We also see HTTP being used for, well, EVERYTHING
> including stateful traffic for which it is completely unsuited -
> Massive overhead to track sessions that were never intended its design.
> Tim Berner-Lee should be a footnote in the computer world - present
> HTTP/HTML protocol usage bare no resemblance to his excellent concept.

Funny you should bring this up. Berners-Lee was in the news today for
making a speech about how the Internet must "grow out of its
adolescence". The interesting part wasn't so much the speech, but the
reaction to it. Comments I read were something along the lines of
"His idea for the Web was great, but he has no influence on any of
this." So in a way, he is unfortunately achieving footnote status.

>
> I said it before - If you want to slap "add-ons" onto Gopher, do the
> universe a favor and write a efficient server/client pair, get a new port
> number assigned to it, and call it Frank or something unique. Please use
> Gopher for its basic use or just move on. Gopher is just Gopher and if it
> doesn't serve your purposes as is, create something new across the
> board - it's not as hard as you might think.

I've been thinking of something that is inspired by Usenet and Gopher. I
don't know if I'll ever find the opportunity to make it happen, but there
is certainly something rolling around in the back of my mind. I think if I
did it, though, I would move it through the HTTP protocol. There just
doesn't seem any other way given that port 80 is so often the only port
that is not blocked for security reasons. I like how Usenet can propogate
threads across the various NNTP servers and I like how Gopher separates
the distribution interface from the target content. I just wish Gopher
carried more of a read/write nature. You are right, though.. it would
fundamentally change the protocol.

>
> It is sad - the internet was reshaped into the web, the web was
> reshaped into Google, and now what was a network of networks is only
> a pipe to broadcast Youtube to billions of mindless consumers. I
> though we already created television (a far more efficient design for
> one-to-many basically one-way transmissions)! The network becomes
> yet another broadcast conduit. LONG LIVE TELNET!

The thing about television is that it was more or less walled-off,
not counting pirate television. YouTube democratized content
creation, but with democratization a rise in critical analysis is
required. That didn't happen and as a result data uncritically
was delivered and consumed. I suspect also that the Internet doesn't
really work as one conceptual thing, but rather as the idea of
a network of networks. Instead of having a few sites with millions of
visitors, there should probably be small sites and services that
somehow federate or allow movement amongst each other, not unlike
how Usenet propagates posts and Gopher provides links to other Gopher
locations. That's just an estimation on my part, though.

[awsomeca...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, February 19, 2019 at 8:28:16 PM UTC-5, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
> Bob Alberti _____________________ wrote:

> > Mateusz Viste ____________________ wrote:
> >>
> >> After a few days of collecting data, I see that there are around 400
> >> gopher servers in the world. Last time I counted (few years ago), the
> >> gopherspace was totaling some 100 online servers.
> >>
> >> Am I confused, or is the gopherspace expanding?
> >
> > I think the degree to which the Web has been gamed, monetized, and monitored
> > is feeding a desire for a "simpler" protocol which has not been so abused.
> > So it wouldn't surprise me if there is a resurgence of interest in Gopher.
>
> Why isn't that happening for Usenet as well?
>
> --
> __ __
> #_ < |\| |< _#

Because of ISP's going nuts about piracy. Piracy is bad, but Usenet File Sharing popularity is dropping because everyone is realizing how bad Piracy is, so that's why we have Netflix. Also now everyone is using Reddit, Slashdot, and Fark to discuss stuff going on, and Telnet's and Usenet's good ole forms of discussion is coming into the hands of Reddit. I hope this gives you a basic understanding.

[Bud Spencer]

On Sun, 1 Mar 2020, awsomeca...@gmail.com wrote:

> Because of ISP's going nuts about piracy. Piracy is bad, but Usenet File Sharing popularity is dropping because everyone is realizing how bad Piracy is, so that's why we have Netflix. Also now everyone is using Reddit, Slashdot, and Fark to discuss stuff going on, and Telnet's and Usenet's good ole forms of discussion is coming into the hands of Reddit. I hope this gives you a basic understanding.

Your undestanding of things is invalid.


/
Bud
/

a1=S0
b1=[1..2,'L0L']
a2=2*a1
a3=S1.4#b1
a4=(a2,a3)
a5=64*a4

[awsomeca...@gmail.com]

But if you go all around Google Groups' Usenet Archive you will see that there are a bunch of people going "I want this movie!" all over the place, also; Netflix and Soundcloud are ending the "Pirate" area. So just please take my advice.

[Bud Spencer]

On Mon, 2 Mar 2020, awsomeca...@gmail.com wrote:

> So just please take my advice.

Nobody asked for your advice.

[Pinku Basudei]

On Mon, 2 Mar 2020 15:05:46 -0800 (PST)
awsomeca...@gmail.com wrote:

> On Monday, March 2, 2020 at 6:33:36 AM UTC-5, Bud Spencer wrote:
> > On Sun, 1 Mar 2020, awsomeca...@gmail.com wrote:
> >
> > > Because of ISP's going nuts about piracy. Piracy is bad, but Usenet File Sharing popularity is dropping because everyone is realizing how bad Piracy is, so that's why we have Netflix. Also now everyone is using Reddit, Slashdot, and Fark to discuss stuff going on, and Telnet's and Usenet's good ole forms of discussion is coming into the hands of Reddit. I hope this gives you a basic understanding.
> >
> > Your undestanding of things is invalid.
> >
> >
> > /
> > Bud
> > /
> >
>

> But if you go all around Google Groups' Usenet Archive you will see that there are a bunch of people going "I want this movie!" all over the place, also; Netflix and Soundcloud are ending the "Pirate" area. So just please take my advice.

I don't know about Soundcloud's market share but Netflix and Spotify offer convenient ways of getting stuff that is legal and thus appeal to a lot of people. Old movie houses are blaming everything on piracy and don't want to admit that their business model is obsolete. Why people isn't asking for movies on Usenet anymore is probably because it's popularity have declined and piracy have moved into harder to trace places where one does not risk getting caught as easy.

But I don't know what this have to do with gopher?

--

/ Pinku

[Computer Nerd Kev]

awsomeca...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Monday, March 2, 2020 at 6:33:36 AM UTC-5, Bud Spencer wrote:
>> On Sun, 1 Mar 2020, awsomeca...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>> > Because of ISP's going nuts about piracy. Piracy is bad, but
>> > Usenet File Sharing popularity is dropping because everyone
>> > is realizing how bad Piracy is, so that's why we have Netflix.
>> > Also now everyone is using Reddit, Slashdot, and Fark to
>> > discuss stuff going on, and Telnet's and Usenet's good ole
>> > forms of discussion is coming into the hands of Reddit. I hope
>> > this gives you a basic understanding.
>>
>> Your undestanding of things is invalid.
>

> But if you go all around Google Groups' Usenet Archive you will
> see that there are a bunch of people going "I want this movie!"
> all over the place, also; Netflix and Soundcloud are ending the
> "Pirate" area. So just please take my advice.

I wasn't going to credit this with a reply, but as long as the the
discussion is persisting anyway...

My query about why Usenet wasn't seeing a resurgence akin to Gopher
was obviously not concerning the binary groups. Gopher's boom is
apparantly by virtue of its text-only presentation and lack of
commercialisation compared to the web. I don't think anyone cares
much for it as a particular method of sharing large binary files,
nor should they have reason to.

With regard to Usenet's discussion groups (the protocol's intended
purpose), they share similar characteristics (at least if you're not
viewing them with some horrible Google interface that doesn't even
wrap your lines for you). So regardless of the fact that there are
commercialised, inefficient, unstandardised, alternatives on the web,
I might have hoped that the same crowd that is attracted to Gopher
would come over to Usenet and boost its numbers which have been
falling for years.

Dying groups that I've been following are only looking more dead now,
and references to Usenet on Gopher are few and far between, so it
appears to me that this isn't happening. The fact of Reddit's
existance does not answer my question, as it presents none of the
important characteristics (ignoring the users themselves, who I can't
compare because I hardly ever view Reddit myself) that I see shared
between Gopher and Usenet. Far more so with Netflix, and probably
whatever Soundcloud is.

[Bud Spencer]

On Tue, 3 Mar 2020, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

> My query about why Usenet wasn't seeing a resurgence akin to Gopher
> was obviously not concerning the binary groups. Gopher's boom is
> apparantly by virtue of its text-only presentation and lack of
> commercialisation compared to the web. I don't think anyone cares
> much for it as a particular method of sharing large binary files,
> nor should they have reason to.
>
> With regard to Usenet's discussion groups (the protocol's intended
> purpose), they share similar characteristics (at least if you're not
> viewing them with some horrible Google interface that doesn't even
> wrap your lines for you). So regardless of the fact that there are
> commercialised, inefficient, unstandardised, alternatives on the web,
> I might have hoped that the same crowd that is attracted to Gopher
> would come over to Usenet and boost its numbers which have been
> falling for years.
>
> Dying groups that I've been following are only looking more dead now,
> and references to Usenet on Gopher are few and far between, so it
> appears to me that this isn't happening. The fact of Reddit's
> existance does not answer my question, as it presents none of the
> important characteristics (ignoring the users themselves, who I can't
> compare because I hardly ever view Reddit myself) that I see shared
> between Gopher and Usenet. Far more so with Netflix, and probably
> whatever Soundcloud is.

Your understanding is valid!

[awsomeca...@gmail.com]

I was replying to Computer Nerd Kev's post

[Daniel]

Netflix's growth in the industry didn't occur because it was the legal
way, but because the monthly cost hit consumers in the sweet spot. For
the longest time it was less than $10/month and, at first, included the
mailed dvd service. The price has since gone up and the justification
was to pay for more original content. My friends who have small children
love it because it keeps the kids occupied with cartoons.

We quit netflix over a year ago when we realized that we're rarely in
the mood to watch anything available. Much newer content would fall off
the list but they had shitloads of older movies, tv shows, and loads of
original content we have no interest in watching. The quality simply
isn't there.

The wife would've spent 45 minutes flipping through album art, shut the
tv off, and grab a book. Months would go by without seeing a single thing.

We realized that amazon prime was, more or less, the same thing as
netflix (minus the original content) and included rentals, plus the free
shipping (which we use often).

Netflix was an easy decision to drop. Just look at disney+

These days, it's either redbox or the library for movies more often than
not.

--
Daniel

Visit me at: gopher://gcpp.world

[Bud Spencer]

On Wed, 11 Mar 2020, Daniel wrote:

> My friends who have small children love it because it keeps the kids occupied with cartoons.

Exactly what it's for. To program ... earlier the better. Just like
zombie-box and is for.

This netflix thing is gross propaganda spitting tool to control people's
views and spread the nonsense.

Your mentioned books are and will be best way to enjoy stories.

> These days, it's either redbox or the library for movies more often than not.

Never head of Redbox before and initial chekc ended up with:

403 ERROR
The request could not be satisfied.
Request blocked. We can't connect to the server for this app or website at
this time. There might be too much traffic or a configuration error. Try
again later, or contact the app or website owner.
If you provide content to customers through CloudFront, you can find steps
to troubleshoot and help prevent this error by reviewing the CloudFront
documentation.

Generated by cloudfront (CloudFront)
Request ID: Th9T4gemRBhkPmE4xoXnhtg2kNs3NygbjcsRIAcjREK54uB_x3WpBQ==

---

So I'll never know :)

Nor I need to ...

[John Floren]

Bud Spencer <b...@campo.verano.it> writes:
> Never head of Redbox before and initial chekc ended up with:
>
> 403 ERROR
> The request could not be satisfied.
> Request blocked. We can't connect to the server for this app or
> website at this time. There might be too much traffic or a
> configuration error. Try again later, or contact the app or website
> owner.
> If you provide content to customers through CloudFront, you can find
> steps to troubleshoot and help prevent this error by reviewing the
> CloudFront documentation.
>
> Generated by cloudfront (CloudFront)
> Request ID: Th9T4gemRBhkPmE4xoXnhtg2kNs3NygbjcsRIAcjREK54uB_x3WpBQ==
>
> ---
>
> So I'll never know :)
>
> Nor I need to ...
>
>

If you're in the US, Redbox is essentially a DVD rental vending machine you can
find in a lot of grocery stores, gas stations, pharmacies. With the
decline of movie rental *stores*, it's filled a niche, particularly in
areas where Internet service is too slow to stream well.

I don't know if they exist outside of the US.



john

[Andy Valencia]

John Floren <jfl...@eternal-september.org> writes:
> If you're in the US, Redbox is essentially a DVD rental vending machine you can
> find in a lot of grocery stores, gas stations, pharmacies. With the
> decline of movie rental *stores*, it's filled a niche, particularly in
> areas where Internet service is too slow to stream well.

Except that they kept putting "copy protection" on the DVD's (bad sectors,
malformed directory entries, ...). Most families kept 3-4 DVD players,
and hoped at least one of them would manage to play a given disk.
Seems like users got tired of it, and moved on to something more convenient.
The one in the local market is increasingly just sitting idle.

Andy

[Daniel]

Not sure why redbox didn't come up for you, but if you're serious.. It
was the final nail in the coffin for movie rental companies like
Hollywood Video and Blockbuster (though blockbuster still has a single
store in Oregon). They are kiosks where you can rent movies and gives
you an option to purchase them too. About $1.50 per movie. You don't
have to return the movie rented at the box you got it from. They accept
returns anywhere. ANd you can have the option to buy the movie later if
you want to keep it. Pretty flexible, and nothing like blockbuster where
a rental bill could surpass $100 if you lose the video.

They are all over the place.

[Bud Spencer]

On Sat, 14 Mar 2020, Daniel wrote:

> Not sure why redbox didn't come up for you, but if you're serious..

Not really.

> They are kiosks where you can rent movies and gives you an option to purchase them too.

I don't watch new movies and almost all watchable old ones are already
archived.

> They are all over the place.

Never seen one. Probably they are not yet spread like corona is ...

But thanks anyway to take your time to write the reply.

[RS Wood]

n...@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) writes:

> Dying groups that I've been following are only looking more dead now,
> and references to Usenet on Gopher are few and far between, so it
> appears to me that this isn't happening. The fact of Reddit's
> existance does not answer my question, as it presents none of the
> important characteristics (ignoring the users themselves, who I can't
> compare because I hardly ever view Reddit myself) that I see shared
> between Gopher and Usenet. Far more so with Netflix, and probably
> whatever Soundcloud is.

Usenet and Gopher remain relevant for those who have always loved it.
The fact that they're not popular with the masses is potentially
irrelevant.

The fact that you can handle the entire browsing session at the console
is pure bonus.

[Andy Valencia]

RS Wood <r...@therandymon.com> writes:
> Usenet and Gopher remain relevant for those who have always loved it.
> The fact that they're not popular with the masses is potentially
> irrelevant.

Sometimes it's a feature. Although against the mandate of Social Media, a
small group sharing high-quality posts is perfectly fine with me. The bottom
1% of a million people is too much ugliness for me.

Andy

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Sure, as long as the small groups exist at all for all of the topics
that you're interested in. Eg. yesterday I was excited to see some
new posts in rec.photo.equipment.35mm, but it turns out to just be a
surge of cross-posted trolling (bottom 0.001%?).

[rtr]

On Mon, 2 Mar 2020 15:05:46 -0800 (PST)
awsomeca...@gmail.com wrote:

I doubt piracy will ever end. There will always be a demand for people
who don't want to spend money for content and there will be people who
will do whatever they can to do so.

Also the current trend of increasing web subscriptions for
video-on-demand services is really itching the pirate scratch in me.

Why would I pay $15/month for every media mogul where I want to watch
the latest content from? I can just jump to an indexer and with a decent
usenet provider I will be done in no time. Plus, I get the added value
of actually having the content in my hard drive. That's cool if I
want to go without internet when I'm travelling.

So yeah, it's a long winded way of saying that I don't think piracy
ended or will end.

--
Give them an inch and they will take a mile.

[Johnatan Duck]

On 2021-11-28, rtr <r...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
> I doubt piracy will ever end. There will always be a demand for people
> who don't want to spend money for content and there will be people who
> will do whatever they can to do so.
>
> Also the current trend of increasing web subscriptions for
> video-on-demand services is really itching the pirate scratch in me.
>
> Why would I pay $15/month for every media mogul where I want to watch
> the latest content from? I can just jump to an indexer and with a decent
> usenet provider I will be done in no time. Plus, I get the added value
> of actually having the content in my hard drive. That's cool if I
> want to go without internet when I'm travelling.
>
> So yeah, it's a long winded way of saying that I don't think piracy
> ended or will end.

Agreed on all the line. I would like to add that,
these services are often not keeping the content I
like, or maybe they do but you never know when they'll
remove it.

Having my own private copy is much better.

[rtr]

Oh for sure! It does annoy me from time to time whenever a series or
movie that I want to watch isn't on Netflix and I'm just reminded that
it's better to just yank it off somewhere rather than pay for a service
that doesn't even have a complete library of stuff that I want to
watch.

And yes. A private copy is certainly much better, it never made any
sense to me to not have a copy of a media that I wanted to read, watch
or listen to.