A paid subscription is not required for the pure text aspect of Usenet. [1] It is required however to make use of the binary groups which makes sense as those

A paid subscription is not required for the pure text aspect of Usenet. [1] It is required however to make use of the binary groups which makes sense as those servers use a tremendous amount of bandwidth even by today's standards. [1] - https://www.eternal-september.org/ https://www.eternal-september.org/