Because it was expensive to run such servers. Imagine dedicating 50-100 Mbps of constant bandwidth just to Usenet, and then explaining to management that 99.9%

Because it was expensive to run such servers. Imagine dedicating 50-100 Mbps of constant bandwidth just to Usenet, and then explaining to management that 99.9% of Usenet was alt.binaries. We outsourced for a while, but even that cost was difficult to justify and none of our customers would admit to wanting it.