Re: CS-234 Discussion

CS234 <cs234@lhmerino.dont-email.me> wrote:

This thread is intended for the students of CS-234: Technologies for democratic society
 
How does Usenet fit into the vision presented by Licklider and Taylor in
"The Computer as a Communication Device"?
 
Reflect on:
- Which aspects of their vision are realized through Usenet?
- What aspects have evolved differently from what they imagined?
 
Feel free to respond to comments made by your classmates as well.

Usenet at its core is a distributed and decentralized network, which aligns
with the authors' vision of a distributed and decentralized use of resources
and information. It also allows people from different countries and communities
to communicate with each other, which aligns with the authors' description of
interconnection. In addition, the online interactive communities mentioned in
the paper can be directly linked to users subscribed to the same newsgroups,
since they share a common interest. On the other hand, what the authors didn't
get right is the cost of communication, which is free or almost free (excluding
paying for internet connectivity), or their vision about collaborative and
intellectual communication, as a great fraction of messages shared on the
Usenet where spam, trolling, low-quality content, etc