Terms

  There are several definitions for such fundamental terms as "Usenet"
  and "Netnews", and you are free to choose. For this post, I chose to
  quote from a 1995 draft, the author of which seems to be Ronda Hauben.

  Ronda, in turn, quoted Horton 1981:

|USENET is a public access network.

  Then, she quotes "a description of Usenet posted in March 1982":

|USENET is an international network of UNIX sites with hookups
|into the ARPA network, too. It is basically a fancy
|electronic Bulletin Board System.

  . And we find, still in Ronda's text:

|Characterizing Usenet as a logical network, as opposed to a
|physical network, Horton explains that Usenet is a network of
|sites running Netnews software:

  Note that the sentence above also says something about "Netnews".
  I take it from this that it might be possible that other
  networks, different from Usenet, might use Netnews software, too.

  The text then continues:

|    "For those of you who don't know, USENET is a logical network
|     of sites running netnews. Netnews is a network oriented
|     bulletin board, making it very easy to broadcast a query to
|     a large base of people. USENET currently has about 50 sites
|     and is growing rapidly."(30)
|
|     Horton emphasizes that Usenet is a users' network. He
|explains: "USENET exists for and by the users, and should respond
|to the needs of those users."(31)
|
|     He also notes that "USENET is a cashless network." This
|meant that "No person or organization may charge another
|organization for news, except that by prearrangement." He
|explains that a site could charge only for the extra expenses
|incurred in sending Usenet to another site. And almost every site
|that received news had to be willing to forward it to at least
|two additional sites.

  .