Yes, we must lock down everything and make it fully proprietary. Imagine having interoperable systems without vendor lock in!

Why, there would be no where to send the invoices... the disorder, the horror.

You get the irony of using Usenet as your rhetorical device, right? That was deliberate metacommentary?

What commentary would that be? What irony is on display here?

Everything in this article applies to literally every communications media available on the internet. As group discourse moves across protocols and platforms, the same problems occur. I'm not sure there's a meaningful difference between "plonk" and "lol blocked".

We might have different definitions of 'died.' Approximately a hundred thousand non-spam posts a month in the text heirarchy and hundreds of terabytes a month in the binaries seems like a living system to me. I accept that this might not be enough for others to bother with.

Not so fast. I still read about a dozen newsgroups.

Ok. I believe you. Are the newsgroups in the room with us right now?

Yep. I click on this icon in my MintLinux panel and voila!

     Tue Mar 5, 2024  4:50pm                              TASS News Reader 3.7.2 jvs [linux]
                                                                   Group Selection
 
 
     ->      1  comp.os.coherent                    
             2  comp.os.cpm                         
             3  comp.sys.northstar                  
             4  comp.unix.programmer                
             5  comp.os.linux.misc                  1   
             6  alt.autos.mercedes                  
             7  alt.sys.pdp8                        
             8  aus.ads.forsale.computers.used      
             9  comp.emulators.misc                 
            10  alt.os.linux.mint                   42  
            11  alt.os.linux.debian                 
            12  alt.sysadmin.recovery

Next we go to group 10 and select

     Tue Mar 5, 2024  4:57pm                              TASS News Reader 3.7.2 jvs [linux]
                                                                  alt.os.linux.mint
 
 
          1  firefox security oddity                                                       9 Mike Scott <usenet.16@scottsonline.org.uk.invali   
          2  Logitech keyboard replacement issues                                          8 azigni <azigni@yahoo.com>                      
          3  Firefox-Ubuntu - How to restore tabs after <Ctrl>+<Alt>+<PrtSc>+REISUB ?      1 Adam <adam@no_thanks.com>                      
          4  dual boot - windows space requirement                                         6 TimW <timw@nomailta.co.uk>                     
          5  [OT} New desktop part 6.                                                     11 pinnerite <pinnerite@gmail.com>                
          6  Lonely Obnoxious Cantankerous Auto-contradicting Senile Ozzie Troll Alert     1 Peeler <trolltrap@valid.invalid>               
          7  Unable to install GRUB                                                       10 pinnerite <pinnerite@gmail.com>                
          8  Does anyone of you really think Mint Version 1000 will have the default a    24 Edmund <nomail@hotmail.com>                    
          9  wine-wine                                                                     5 Monsieur <Monsieur@notreal.invalid>            
         10  Recovering data                                                               4 pinnerite <pinnerite@gmail.com>                
         11  Flight simulators                                                             4 pinnerite <pinnerite@gmail.com>                
         12  Alternative to Vidalia for a Tor server on another computer of a network        TeddyTheBest2004 <teddythebest2004@europe.com> 
         13  No access to linux mint website??                                             2 TeddyTheBest2004 <teddythebest2004@europe.com> 
         14  turbocad LE                                                                  10 TimW <timw@nomailta.co.uk>                     
         15  Email host                                                                      Chris Holmes <chrispvholmes@gmail.com>         
         16  MySQL problem                                                                 9 pinnerite <pinnerite@gmail.com>                
         17  typing onto the desktop                                                       4 TimW <timw@nomailta.co.uk>                     
         18  De ontwikkeling van AI.                                                       2 Edmund <nomail@hotmail.com>                    
         19  Ignore wrong group.                                                             Edmund <nomail@hotmail.com>                    
         20  Thunar bugs                                                                   2 Handsome Jack (Jack@handsome.com)              
         21  Failed to read hd0                                                           27 RobH <rob@nospam.com>                             +
         22  Stop stealing focus                                                           8 Monsieur <Monsieur@notreal.invalid>            
         23  Anyone using Hypnotix?                                                        2 pinnerite <pinnerite@gmail.com>                
         24  Thunderbird 115.6.0                                                           3 pinnerite <pinnerite@gmail.com>                
         25  VideoDownloader doesn't work anymore so I tried Youtube Downloader Plus.     29 Edmund <nomail@hotmail.com>                       +
         26  Intel Iris XE graphics                                                        1 Jeff <jeff@invalid.invalid>                       +
         27  Clone a disk problem                                                          1 RobH <rob@nospam.com>                             +
     ->  28  No access to restored files                                                   3 Jeff <jeff@invalid.invalid>                       +
 

EC 4 ME

And now we have walled gardens and monopolies abusing people to death.

To death, you say!