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I am old enough to remember Usenet. All you needed was an Internet connection, a usenet client, and access to a usenet server. Most ISPs provided usenet access

I am old enough to remember Usenet. All you needed was an Internet connection, a usenet client, and access to a usenet server. Most ISPs provided usenet access just like they provided an e-mail address at the time. So it was no more difficult to be involved in usenet than it was to have e-mail. In modern terms, usenet would be reddit if it was distributed (so anyone willing to set-up their own server could run a node and let people connect to it). But for end-users it was as simple as having an e-mail account and a client application on your computer.

WesleyLivesay 7y ago
During the "Golden Age" of Usenet, which I believe many people to consider to be pre-Eternal September, the number of Americans with any form of internet access was just a fraction of the population. I am finding varying figures online, but they seem to hover at <15% of the population of the United States. Given the costs of that access and the costs of the computers. It was both a very small and a very specific type of person that was accessing Usenet at the time.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  I've been digging up numbers over the past few years. In 1980 there were 2 million computers in the US, doubling every 2 years. By 2000, there were 168 million computers, only 6 doublings rather than the 10 the 1980 estimate would have provided. That suggests about 16 million users as of 1990, possibly 24-32 million by 1992. As of 1995, total worldwide Internet usage (then largely in the US, though also Europe) was 16 millions. As of 2019 it's 4.5 billions. https://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm https://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm (From an earlier HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21783812 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21783812) Brian Reid's Usenet Usenet usage reports as of 1988 reported about 140k active Usenet users, from a population-with-access of about 880,000. Usenet was small. (Some of these stats also cited in in one of the links (which I wrote) from TFA.)
  - 300bps 7y ago
    Yeah I got my first modem in 1985 (hence the username). Anyone outside of academia was all BBS, not Internet back then. I’m shocked to hear Usenet even had 140k active users in 1988.
    - wccrawford 7y ago
      Oh man, I had a 300 baud modem for a very short time. Then my parents found out how much it'd cost to use it (long distance to nearest BBS or provider) and they sent it back. Ugh. I did eventually get to use a 2400 baud modem though, and even ran my own BBS for a while. Fun days.
  - jfengel 7y ago
    Indeed: the entire contents of Usenet up to the 1990s, including binaries, would fit on a thumb drive. https://ryanfb.github.io/etc/2015/02/23/early_usenet_history_and_archiving.html https://ryanfb.github.io/etc/2015/02/23/early_usenet_history... Getting it off piles of tapes and onto that thumb drive, however, was a large task: https://www.joe0.com/2019/02/17/converting-utzoo-usenet-archive-from-tgz-to-mysql-database-java-code/ https://www.joe0.com/2019/02/17/converting-utzoo-usenet-arch...
- DanBC 7y ago
  I think people do not appreciate just how expensive it was to get online. In 1988 Compuserve (more than 250,000 subscribers) was charging $11 per hour, The Source charged $8 per hour, Delphi charged $6 per hour, and BIX was $9 per hour. Eleven 1988 dollars would be about $23 today.
  - h2odragon 7y ago
    Long distance rates to BBS's were nasty, too. Thus the joy in finding any and all ways to get free calls. In ... 1992? i think it was I had a provider that offered dialup shell access for $8/hr on an 800 number, and that was the best legitimate price around for a good while. I built people networks off that box.
    - ghaff 7y ago
      And that included intra-state long distance which could actually be even higher than inter-state calls. For quite a while I used a subscription BBS in a relatively nearby city. Phone calls were still expensive and there were all sorts of tricks/tools to minimize the time you spent online. (e.g. software that let you download new messages on specific boards and read/reply offline.)
bregma 7y ago
You didn't even need an internet connection. All you needed was the phone number of a UUCP node and a dial-up modem.
whoopdedo 7y ago
> All you needed was an Internet connection That in itself was a significant enough barrier to entry for the general public. Most people prior to Eternal September were unaware that the internet existed, or falsely believed it could only be accessed by university students. And outside of the G10 countries getting online was a major technical barrier.
kazinator 7y ago
> All you needed was an Internet connection, a usenet client, and access to a usenet server. I happen to have all three, and participated in Usenet just minutes ago. You might want to delay your Usenet death proclamations by just a little.
- UncleSlacky 7y ago
  Let's wait until Netcraft confirms it...
rikroots 7y ago
From my days on usenet (rest in peace, rec.arts.poems) one of the more obvious trolls had to resort to accessing the newsgroups via his local library, after he ran out of ISPs willing to take his money. On the positive site, I know of one intercontinental marriage facilitated by RAP.

WesleyLivesay 7y ago

During the "Golden Age" of Usenet, which I believe many people to consider to be pre-Eternal September, the number of Americans with any form of internet access was just a fraction of the population. I am finding varying figures online, but they seem to hover at <15% of the population of the United States. Given the costs of that access and the costs of the computers. It was both a very small and a very specific type of person that was accessing Usenet at the time.

dredmorbius 7y ago
I've been digging up numbers over the past few years. In 1980 there were 2 million computers in the US, doubling every 2 years. By 2000, there were 168 million computers, only 6 doublings rather than the 10 the 1980 estimate would have provided. That suggests about 16 million users as of 1990, possibly 24-32 million by 1992. As of 1995, total worldwide Internet usage (then largely in the US, though also Europe) was 16 millions. As of 2019 it's 4.5 billions. https://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm https://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm (From an earlier HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21783812 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21783812) Brian Reid's Usenet Usenet usage reports as of 1988 reported about 140k active Usenet users, from a population-with-access of about 880,000. Usenet was small. (Some of these stats also cited in in one of the links (which I wrote) from TFA.)
- 300bps 7y ago
  Yeah I got my first modem in 1985 (hence the username). Anyone outside of academia was all BBS, not Internet back then. I’m shocked to hear Usenet even had 140k active users in 1988.
  - wccrawford 7y ago
    Oh man, I had a 300 baud modem for a very short time. Then my parents found out how much it'd cost to use it (long distance to nearest BBS or provider) and they sent it back. Ugh. I did eventually get to use a 2400 baud modem though, and even ran my own BBS for a while. Fun days.
- jfengel 7y ago
  Indeed: the entire contents of Usenet up to the 1990s, including binaries, would fit on a thumb drive. https://ryanfb.github.io/etc/2015/02/23/early_usenet_history_and_archiving.html https://ryanfb.github.io/etc/2015/02/23/early_usenet_history... Getting it off piles of tapes and onto that thumb drive, however, was a large task: https://www.joe0.com/2019/02/17/converting-utzoo-usenet-archive-from-tgz-to-mysql-database-java-code/ https://www.joe0.com/2019/02/17/converting-utzoo-usenet-arch...
DanBC 7y ago
I think people do not appreciate just how expensive it was to get online. In 1988 Compuserve (more than 250,000 subscribers) was charging $11 per hour, The Source charged $8 per hour, Delphi charged $6 per hour, and BIX was $9 per hour. Eleven 1988 dollars would be about $23 today.
- h2odragon 7y ago
  Long distance rates to BBS's were nasty, too. Thus the joy in finding any and all ways to get free calls. In ... 1992? i think it was I had a provider that offered dialup shell access for $8/hr on an 800 number, and that was the best legitimate price around for a good while. I built people networks off that box.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    And that included intra-state long distance which could actually be even higher than inter-state calls. For quite a while I used a subscription BBS in a relatively nearby city. Phone calls were still expensive and there were all sorts of tricks/tools to minimize the time you spent online. (e.g. software that let you download new messages on specific boards and read/reply offline.)

bregma 7y ago

You didn't even need an internet connection. All you needed was the phone number of a UUCP node and a dial-up modem.

whoopdedo 7y ago

> All you needed was an Internet connection That in itself was a significant enough barrier to entry for the general public. Most people prior to Eternal September were unaware that the internet existed, or falsely believed it could only be accessed by university students. And outside of the G10 countries getting online was a major technical barrier.

kazinator 7y ago

> All you needed was an Internet connection, a usenet client, and access to a usenet server. I happen to have all three, and participated in Usenet just minutes ago. You might want to delay your Usenet death proclamations by just a little.

UncleSlacky 7y ago
Let's wait until Netcraft confirms it...

rikroots 7y ago

From my days on usenet (rest in peace, rec.arts.poems) one of the more obvious trolls had to resort to accessing the newsgroups via his local library, after he ran out of ISPs willing to take his money. On the positive site, I know of one intercontinental marriage facilitated by RAP.