From: petertrei@gmail.com   
      
   On 2/4/2024 9:56 PM, Keith F. Lynch wrote:   
   > kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) quoted:   
   >> sybershock's sysadmin posted this gem:   
   >>> From: SugarBug <3883@sugar.bug>   
   >   
   >>> Google and other large Usenet providers have suborned a non-stop   
   >>> flood of zillions and bazillions of spam articles over the years,   
   >>> making newsgroups unusable for many end-users, causing much   
   >>> exodus from the Usenet network.  Some believe that this was not   
   >>> incompetence or negligence, but intentional malice disguised as   
   >>> incompetence and negligence.   
   >   
   > This never made sense to me.  Why would any corporation *want*   
   > to appear incompetent or negligent?  That's a sure way to drive   
   > away current and potential customers, investors, advertisers, and   
   > employees.   
   >   
   > 2/22 isn't the end of Usenet.  But it may be the beginning of the   
   > end of Google.   
      
   Keith has long had a very out of date view of the significance of   
   Usenet to the general Internet.   
      
   For at least the last decade, most Internet users haven't even   
   known what Usenet is, and certainly didn't miss it. Every Usenet   
   server could shut down, and less then 5% of users would even   
   notice, and even fewer would care.   
      
   GG is a tiny fraction of Alphabet's activities, and one that   
   does not produce any revenue. Thinking "it may be the beginning   
   of the end of Google" is simply delusional.   
      
   I recently switched from GG to eternal-september for three reasons:   
      
   1. I retired, and no longer spend most of my online time behind a   
   firewall that blocked NNTP.   
      
   2. A spammer appeared on rasf and rasfw who was posting spam in   
   Thai at the rate of about 1 new thread a minute. This made finding   
   actual content near-impossible. Eternal September drops all messages   
   from GG, which effectively blocked this.   
      
   3. The GG shutdown.   
      
   pt   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)