From: gneuner2@comcast.net   
      
   On Thu, 22 Jan 2026 22:57:50 +0200, Michael S   
    wrote:   
      
   >On Thu, 22 Jan 2026 15:12:06 -0500   
   >George Neuner  wrote:   
   >   
   >> On Wed, 21 Jan 2026 01:44:08 GMT, MitchAlsup   
   >>  wrote:   
   >>   
   >> >Anyone still here and active ???   
   >> >   
   >> >Mitch   
   >>   
   >> Still here.   
   >>   
   >> Given that Usenet as a whole seems to be dying, sudden pauses in   
   >> postings are eerie.   
   >   
   >Usenet as a whole is dying for several years longer than the time since   
   >I first discovered it 23+ years ago.   
   >   
      
   I discovered Usenet in the late 80's. I participated in about 20 of   
   the comp.* and sci.* groups.  All through the 90's and even into the   
   early 00's many of them were quite lively.   
      
   I recognized early on that the file sharing groups were in trouble -   
   mainly due to legal issues - but I didn't get the sense that Usenet   
   was in decline more generally until the late 00's.   
      
   And it wasn't for lack of GUIs:  I can't recall names now, but there   
   were at least 2 different terminal hosted GUIs (one of which had a   
   Windows port), Netscape mail did NN natively, and AltaVista had a   
   quite nice [text but browser hosted] interface to Usenet.   
      
   Google managed to f_ up everything AltaVista did, Microsoft pushed   
   Netscape aside, Firefox came along but quickly removed its initial   
   email and NN support, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey took too long to   
   appear, and too many web providers were trying to cash in by luring   
   people to pay-walled forums.   
      
   It seems all it would have taken was one decent web site providing a   
   good user experience for Usenet.   
      
   Yeah, I know ... why didn't I do it?  Well, I don't do web sites.   
   [Actually, that's incorrect:  I do do middle and backend work, but I   
   don't do any user facing (GUI) stuff. I've been told my sense of what   
   is "easy to use" is somewhat stunted ... I've been in computing since   
   1980 and I am mostly satisfied that something works.  Moreover, I   
   don't consider very much "modern" software - and almost nothing that   
   runs on a phone or in a browser - to be particularly easy to use.]   
      
   YMMV.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)