I don't agree with the claims that Usenet is dead, or that it isn't used for actual discussion anymore. I am subscribed to many newsgroups and most of them are

I don't agree with the claims that Usenet is dead, or that it isn't used for actual discussion anymore. I am subscribed to many newsgroups and most of them are very active. They work in all regards like mailing lists: you will find support lists for programming languages or software, announcement lists, and discussion groups about humanities, politics and many other subjects you might be interested in. People who ask questions actually get answers. There is spam, yes, but almost all of it is in newsgroups that receive no messages other than spam, and there is no point in subscribing to these newsgroups in the first place. You can filter the rest away with SpamAssassin or Bogofilter. You can get free access from news.solani.org or www.eternal-september.org to the non-binary newsgroups, where all the interesting discussion happens. Any client like Gnus or Thunderbird can do.