Python Forum

[Alf P. Steinbach]

* John Bokma, on 04.06.2010 20:19:
> Steven D'Aprano<steve at REMOVE-THIS-cybersource.com.au>  writes:
>
>> But the really sad thing is that you think that "bigger" automatically
>> equals "better".
>
> I don't think that was the point.
>
> Anyway, not everbody can pick a provider, there are plenty of places
> that have only one or maybe two. And if that's the choice and neither
> carries Usenet you have to pay for Usenet like I do. Note that I
> consider it well worth the 10 euros I pay for it.
>
> To me, it looks like the use of Usenet for text is on the
> decline. I've been away from Usenet for like a year or so and could see
> quite a difference. More and more ISPs in my experience are dropping
> Usenet from their services. Mind, I think that the number of users on
> Usenet (text only) still exceeds the number when I first used Usenet
> (back in the early 90's). But usage is on the decline as far as I can
> tell. On top of that I see people I know from Usenet now quite active on
> Stack Overflow and sister sites.
>
> Finally, I have to disagree with your disagreement (which is just a
> personal experience) based on my personal experience: it's harder to
> find an ISP that carries Usenet. And I have experience with, oh, just 3
> countries where I have been living in for the past 10 years.

True.

While Usenet traffic is still exponentially increasing, most of that's in binary 
groups, and it's spam.

I think much of the decline of Usenet is correlated with an increase of laws 
designed to limit free speech and support all kinds surveillance. It started, as 
I see it, back in the early 90's with Playboy attempting to sue anyone who used 
the Lena picture in photo processing tests etc. (it's the standard image for 
that). They failed in that particular endeavour, but did succeed in shutting 
down thousands of sites worldwide displaying Playboy pictures. The Church of 
Scientology picked up on the idea that a private company can /control/ net 
content worldwide by way of laws designed for other things. The record and movie 
industry caught on to this. Governments of some special countries such China, 
Saudi-Arabia and Iran, plus, very suprising to me, Australia, caught on to it, 
that is, the idea of controlling net content, or at least access to that 
content. Then finally George W. Bush caught on to it, and with American ISPs 
legally responsible for the content of the traffic, well, the following from 
Wikipedia isn't quite chronological but is quite clear:


<quote src="The Wikipedia article about Usenet">
In 2008, Verizon Communications, Time Warner Cable and Sprint Nextel signed an 
agreement with Attorney General of New York Andrew Cuomo to shut down access to 
sources of child pornography.[31]  Time Warner Cable stopped offering access to 
Usenet. Verizon reduced its access to the "Big 8" hierarchies. Sprint stopped 
access to the alt.* hierarchies. AT&T stopped access to the alt.binaries.* 
hierarchies. Cuomo never specifically named Usenet in his anti-child pornography 
campaign. David DeJean of PC World said that some worry that the ISPs used 
Cuomo's campaign as an excuse to end portions of Usenet access, as it is costly 
for the internet service providers. In 2008 AOL, which no longer offered Usenet 
access, and the four providers that responded to the Cuomo campaign were the 
five largest internet service providers in the United States; they had more than 
50% of the U.S. ISP marketshare.[32]  On June 8, 2009, AT&T announced that it 
would no longer provide access to the Usenet service as of July 15, 2009.[33]

AOL announced that it would discontinue its integrated Usenet service in early 
2005, citing the growing popularity of weblogs, chat forums and on-line 
conferencing.[34] The AOL community had a tremendous role in popularizing Usenet 
some 11 years earlier,[citation needed] with all of its positive and negative 
aspects. This change marked the end of the legendary Eternal September. Others, 
however, feel that Google Groups, especially with its new user interface, has 
picked up the torch that AOL has dropped—and that the so-called Eternal 
September has yet to end.[citation needed]

In August, 2009, Verizon announced that it would discontinue access to Usenet on 
September 30, 2009.[35][36]

In April 2010, Cox Communications announced (via email) that it would 
discontinue Usenet service, effective June 30, 2010. JANET(UK) announced it will 
discontinue Usenet service, effective July 31, 2010, citing Google Groups as an 
alternative.[37] Microsoft announced that it would discontinue support for it's 
public newsgroups (msnews.microsoft.com) from June 1, 2010, offering web forums 
as an alternative.
</quote>


In short, in the future you will no longer be able to access old articles via 
archives such as Google Groups (Google picked up that archive from Deja News).

Until some replacement for Usenet appears, online discussion will in general be 
effectively /local/, unknown to all but the parties currently using a given web 
forum, and it will in general not be archived.

As I see it, those who have made and continue to make the decisions to make it 
that way, want it that way.


Cheers,

- Alf

-- 
blog at <url: http://alfps.wordpress.com>