Re: Usenet (was: Re: Royal Back of Canada Phish coming from Google Gmail)

Randolf Richardson 張文道 writes:

I was disappointed when Google shutdown their Usenet connection,
because it meant that fewer people would be using it.  I think
they wanted to divorce themselves of the headache though, and I
don't blame them for this because the vast majority of postings I
see in the more popular newsgroups are spam and/or hostile trolls.
who've essentially ruined the technology for most people.

I don't think its spam and trolls that doomed Usenet. Everyone knows exactly  when spam started on Usenet, and it was way long before Usenet's doom spiral  in the 21st century. And trolling has been an art form long before spam came  along.
The reason for Usenet's death spiral is that it was marginally more  cumbersome and difficult to participate in Usenet than it was to click a  URL. Also, a lot of Usenet's engagement was a side effect of alt.binaries. A  lot came for the pr0n and warez, and then also took a look at other things  while they were there. This worked until more efficient means of  distributing pr0n and warez became popular. That, and the developing  idiocracy is what doomed Usenet.