5 ms·

The demise of USENET was the first great regression for me. I still haven't found a forum quite as convenient as a news client.

sodomizer 14y ago
Part of the reason USENET got abandoned is the same reason that MySpace and Facebook are being abandoned: as newer services came about, the cutting edge flocked to them, which left a high ratio of malcontents, trolls, bullies, assorted dickheads, etc.
- tptacek 14y ago
  I don't agree. In fact, the flood of new Usenet users corresponded to an overall flood of new people from all walks of life learning to use the Internet; it wasn't all bad. Also, the structure of Usenet is like that of very-modern Reddit, while the "Eternal September" hypothesis of its demise is premised on an early-Reddit model. I'm sure alt.drugs suffered, but "comp.security.unix" did OK. The fatal injury from Usenet came from piracy. I ran a competitive† server for the ISP I helped run in Chicago††. The amount of effort it took to host binaries feeds was unbelievable and only got worse as time went on. Usenet is just about the dumbest imaginable way to distribute binaries†††. Unsurprisingly, fewer and fewer ISPs offered full-feed Usenet. When an ISP opted (sanely) to go with no-binaries Usenet, their Usenet consumers bolted. Usenet centralized and became less and less available. Usenet software because less and less lucrative to build. Then blogging hit. This is a little off topic, I know, but I'm bitter about what happened to Usenet, because I really loved it. † (we hit the top tier of the Freenix list several times; I believe we were one of the first 3 providers to come up with the INN history cache) †† (EnterAct) ††† (imagine an Akamai that had no control over whose content was hosted, but instead had to mirror every bit of porn and warez from every server everywhere to every ISP in the world)
  - oddthink 14y ago
    Usenet also didn't have a good way to deal with spam, at least not one that I knew about. It steadily became harder to find the signal in the noise. It still had the best reader experience. I don't know why modern email clients, for example, don't look more like trn.
    - DanBC 14y ago
      Usenet had a strict definition for spam, which meant a bunch of stuff got through. It was also under active attack from Hipcrime and similar. And no matter how good the killfiles were there were people who wouldn't use them. I agree about the clients - I really liked slrn.
    - derleth 14y ago
      > Usenet also didn't have a good way to deal with spam Nobody really does. The only way you can keep a channel spam-free is to have humans spend time monitoring it to keep the spam out, which is a huge cost asymmetry in favor of the spammers. Anything algorithmic gets gamed and, eventually, broken entirely.
  - ijk 14y ago
    Google Groups didn't help, since the interface went from decent to degraded to useless to now-I-can't-find-it over the past decade. There are still active newsgroups with regular postings, it's just nearly impossible to find them from the web. (And the spam is still a problem.)
    - tptacek 14y ago
      By the time Google bought Deja, Usenet was already dead.
      - ijk 14y ago
        I disagree--Usenet was mostly dead. As I said, though it's not like the old days, there are still newsgroups that I follow, and topics that still have active discussion via Usenet. The bulk of my Usenet reading took place post-Google, so active discussions continued long past that point. Actually, checking it just now, Google's updated the interface yet again, and this time seems to be an improvement, at least on the spam-fighting front.
        unimpressive 14y ago
        What newsgroups are still alive? Just knowing where to start would be a huge help.
        ijk 14y ago
        I can't really speak to general interest. As I said, discoverability is terrible, so I only know of stuff that either I've been following since the '90s or I've seen mentioned by others. So this is a very eclectic list. But they all have recent discussions going on. rec.arts.sf.written rec.arts.int-fiction rec.games.int-fiction rec.games.roguelike.development rec.games.roguelike.nethack And a few more active ones I found while searching: rec.games.pinball rec.games.bridge rec.arts.books.tolkien rec.arts.comics.strips rec.arts.drwho rec.arts.drwho.moderated If you know the usenet hierarchy, you can enter the start of a set of groups (e.g. "rec.games") and the current Google Groups search interface will pop up a list of Usenet subgroups after a sec...but only if you're not already within a group. But the results look to be roughly sorted by recent activity, so that's at least helpful in revealing which of the groups are pretty much dead. (Undead spam threads are pretty common too, unfortunately.) Note that Usenet quality has always varied (it's the place that more-or-less introduced trolls, viruses, spam, and flame wars). I really can't tell if the quality of the posting has gone up or down. I definitely can't guarantee what you'll find.
  - derefr 14y ago
    > imagine an Akamai that had no control over whose content was hosted, but instead had to mirror every bit of porn and warez from every server everywhere to every ISP in the world You mean CloudFlare? (They really do have problems with people using them as a large-media/warez CDN.)
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- Systemic33 14y ago
  I'm curious, what is Facebook being abandoned for? I'm not aware of any social networks that draws users from Facebook. Google + isn't as capable as Facebook, and totally flopped their launch marketing (Standard Google launch -.-), so basically not used by anyone (atleast here in Denmark, and europe afaik).
- crag 14y ago
  "Facebook are being abandoned..." Not that I'm a FB fan, but you have data to back up that claim?
  - sesqu 14y ago
    http://wtop.com/52/3270431/Teens-shying-away-from-Facebook http://wtop.com/52/3270431/Teens-shying-away-from-Facebook
    - crag 14y ago
      Ok.. so people are "cutting back" their use. That doesn't mean people are abandoning FB. Of course the time is about right for a new kid on the block. Cause, frankly, there has to be a better way. And don't say Google +. Cause that ain't it either. Raising the cash is the easy part. The hard part is coming up with a better idea. :)
unimpressive 14y ago
I still think that Usenet just needs a decent reboot.
- martinced 14y ago
  Definitely... Usenet rocked and there's probably still more knowledge on Usenet than, say, on all the StackExchange sites taken together. I take the Usenet trolls everyday over the revisionism that takes place on SO. Usenet was better for programming, gaming, scientific, etc. topics than the Web and Usenet was better for binaries than the Web. 100% agreeing with you... All it needs is a good reboot and we're good to go for a few decades : )

sodomizer 14y ago

Part of the reason USENET got abandoned is the same reason that MySpace and Facebook are being abandoned: as newer services came about, the cutting edge flocked to them, which left a high ratio of malcontents, trolls, bullies, assorted dickheads, etc.

tptacek 14y ago
I don't agree. In fact, the flood of new Usenet users corresponded to an overall flood of new people from all walks of life learning to use the Internet; it wasn't all bad. Also, the structure of Usenet is like that of very-modern Reddit, while the "Eternal September" hypothesis of its demise is premised on an early-Reddit model. I'm sure alt.drugs suffered, but "comp.security.unix" did OK. The fatal injury from Usenet came from piracy. I ran a competitive† server for the ISP I helped run in Chicago††. The amount of effort it took to host binaries feeds was unbelievable and only got worse as time went on. Usenet is just about the dumbest imaginable way to distribute binaries†††. Unsurprisingly, fewer and fewer ISPs offered full-feed Usenet. When an ISP opted (sanely) to go with no-binaries Usenet, their Usenet consumers bolted. Usenet centralized and became less and less available. Usenet software because less and less lucrative to build. Then blogging hit. This is a little off topic, I know, but I'm bitter about what happened to Usenet, because I really loved it. † (we hit the top tier of the Freenix list several times; I believe we were one of the first 3 providers to come up with the INN history cache) †† (EnterAct) ††† (imagine an Akamai that had no control over whose content was hosted, but instead had to mirror every bit of porn and warez from every server everywhere to every ISP in the world)
- oddthink 14y ago
  Usenet also didn't have a good way to deal with spam, at least not one that I knew about. It steadily became harder to find the signal in the noise. It still had the best reader experience. I don't know why modern email clients, for example, don't look more like trn.
  - DanBC 14y ago
    Usenet had a strict definition for spam, which meant a bunch of stuff got through. It was also under active attack from Hipcrime and similar. And no matter how good the killfiles were there were people who wouldn't use them. I agree about the clients - I really liked slrn.
  - derleth 14y ago
    > Usenet also didn't have a good way to deal with spam Nobody really does. The only way you can keep a channel spam-free is to have humans spend time monitoring it to keep the spam out, which is a huge cost asymmetry in favor of the spammers. Anything algorithmic gets gamed and, eventually, broken entirely.
- ijk 14y ago
  Google Groups didn't help, since the interface went from decent to degraded to useless to now-I-can't-find-it over the past decade. There are still active newsgroups with regular postings, it's just nearly impossible to find them from the web. (And the spam is still a problem.)
  - tptacek 14y ago
    By the time Google bought Deja, Usenet was already dead.
    - ijk 14y ago
      I disagree--Usenet was mostly dead. As I said, though it's not like the old days, there are still newsgroups that I follow, and topics that still have active discussion via Usenet. The bulk of my Usenet reading took place post-Google, so active discussions continued long past that point. Actually, checking it just now, Google's updated the interface yet again, and this time seems to be an improvement, at least on the spam-fighting front.
      - unimpressive 14y ago
        What newsgroups are still alive? Just knowing where to start would be a huge help.
        ijk 14y ago
        I can't really speak to general interest. As I said, discoverability is terrible, so I only know of stuff that either I've been following since the '90s or I've seen mentioned by others. So this is a very eclectic list. But they all have recent discussions going on. rec.arts.sf.written rec.arts.int-fiction rec.games.int-fiction rec.games.roguelike.development rec.games.roguelike.nethack And a few more active ones I found while searching: rec.games.pinball rec.games.bridge rec.arts.books.tolkien rec.arts.comics.strips rec.arts.drwho rec.arts.drwho.moderated If you know the usenet hierarchy, you can enter the start of a set of groups (e.g. "rec.games") and the current Google Groups search interface will pop up a list of Usenet subgroups after a sec...but only if you're not already within a group. But the results look to be roughly sorted by recent activity, so that's at least helpful in revealing which of the groups are pretty much dead. (Undead spam threads are pretty common too, unfortunately.) Note that Usenet quality has always varied (it's the place that more-or-less introduced trolls, viruses, spam, and flame wars). I really can't tell if the quality of the posting has gone up or down. I definitely can't guarantee what you'll find.
- derefr 14y ago
  > imagine an Akamai that had no control over whose content was hosted, but instead had to mirror every bit of porn and warez from every server everywhere to every ISP in the world You mean CloudFlare? (They really do have problems with people using them as a large-media/warez CDN.)
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
Systemic33 14y ago
I'm curious, what is Facebook being abandoned for? I'm not aware of any social networks that draws users from Facebook. Google + isn't as capable as Facebook, and totally flopped their launch marketing (Standard Google launch -.-), so basically not used by anyone (atleast here in Denmark, and europe afaik).
crag 14y ago
"Facebook are being abandoned..." Not that I'm a FB fan, but you have data to back up that claim?
- sesqu 14y ago
  http://wtop.com/52/3270431/Teens-shying-away-from-Facebook http://wtop.com/52/3270431/Teens-shying-away-from-Facebook
  - crag 14y ago
    Ok.. so people are "cutting back" their use. That doesn't mean people are abandoning FB. Of course the time is about right for a new kid on the block. Cause, frankly, there has to be a better way. And don't say Google +. Cause that ain't it either. Raising the cash is the easy part. The hard part is coming up with a better idea. :)

unimpressive 14y ago

I still think that Usenet just needs a decent reboot.

martinced 14y ago
Definitely... Usenet rocked and there's probably still more knowledge on Usenet than, say, on all the StackExchange sites taken together. I take the Usenet trolls everyday over the revisionism that takes place on SO. Usenet was better for programming, gaming, scientific, etc. topics than the Web and Usenet was better for binaries than the Web. 100% agreeing with you... All it needs is a good reboot and we're good to go for a few decades : )