It's not so much that people forget about Usenet as that they forget why it died.
It got spammed to death.
It lost control over its culture, and that culture was crucial to its functioning.
It was too problematic for ISPs (or others) to provide ready access to it: spam, harassment, child pornography, and copyright violations all posed massive concerns.
There was no viable business model for providing the service.
@dredmorbius usenet existed for years without a 'viable business model'
It just had shitty moderation options.
@ajr @dredmorbius in UK was popular well into the 2000s, until broadband available in all areas - Usenet software had offline reading/replying, using forums required being online and incurring phone call costs all the time (often tying up a phone that was wanted for voice calls).
Agree that moderation was issue; there were trolls who put serious effort into destroying UK groups and eventually cops had to deal with them b/c they were doxxing/stalking ppl
still worthwhile today ! I think doomsday" situations/nationwide shutdowns of net are *extremely* unlikely in Europe, but local disruption is not uncommon (if vehicle knocks over VDSL street box it takes BT at least 2 weeks to fix it).
Even in "rich" nations like UK/NL/DE providers ruthlessly cherrypick which areas get good connectivity both fixed and mobile, low income urban areas and remote rural areas often fare poorly unless govt subsidises.
@dredmorbius Right, but the reason it stopped existing wasn't that it didn't have a business model. The reason it stopped existing was that it had shitty moderation options.
(And it still exists, it's just a cesspool.)
Doc Edward Morbius ❌
Andrew Roach
Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK