On Jun 30, 9:16 pm, somnial wrote:
Steve wrote:

Feeling cheated,

(by Time Warner)
Steve (in the Adirondacks)

I am currently getting my usenet service via Earthlink on the
identical cable that could deliver Road Runner to me if I wanted it.
I am NOT a television cable customer. I only subscribe to internet
service.
Some time after Earthlink bought out mindspring, they announced that
usenet service was a free service and therefore its elimination in the
future would not be regarded by them as a diminution of service.
I protested that it would be a substantial diminution of service as
far as I was concerned.

A year or two ago, someone on some newsgroup predicted that newsgroups
would be phased out as ISPs slowly dropped that service. I thought to
myself, how could they drop newsgroups when there are thousands of
groups to choose from and there must be millions of people using them?
Well, I guess it is happening. As more ISPs drop the newsgroup
service, others will feel less obligated to provide it themselves and
they will drop it too.
Giganews, EasyNews, and the others will be around as long as they can
make money, but how many people will try newsgroups for the first time
if they have other options and have to pay a separate bill to get into
newsgroups? Google will probably help keep things alive for a long
time, but newsgroups weren't born to be read on a web site. It's like
keeping a species from extinction by keeping it in a zoo (or, to stay
on topic, by keeping it in orchid collections). Maybe we ARE a dying
breed. :-(

Steve