It is ironical that we talk about usenet everywhere but on usenet. Events like the blackout on reddit and the scramble to move to alternate platforms would hardly be necessary if usenet worked clearly as a discussion platform.
While everyone blames spam for the slow death of discussions on usenet, I think there are a couple of other reasons:
- access over http
- searchability
These two reasons are why Google Groups continues to work while discussions on usenet barely do.
Usenet has to evolve to provide solutions to these problems:
- spam: moderated groups are an insufficient solution when compared to moderation tools provided by modern discussion platforms.
- usenet over http: people should be able to carry on discussions using browsers as well as apps. They should be able to share links to these discussions as well.
- search: people should be able to conduct a search across all discussions by using native as well as third-party search engines (Google, Bing, Brave etc).
In my opinion the problem with Usenet is accessibility to “normal” people. For a non-technical user, or even a neophyte, the mere act of finding a Usenet news server is difficult. Yes, we have Eternal September, but if you ask most people, they have no idea what that is. When ISPs offered it, access was easy to find and there was nothing else as ubiquitous. Now, most search results for Usenet find the paid news servers and nobody wants to pay for something that, for all practical purposes, exists on other free platforms.
If we want to revive Usenet, we need to have a big-name provider offer free access with no strings attached; no walled garden, no caveats. If a service like Reddit were to come along today, built on top of Usenet, it would explode in popularity. The problem is that any company building something like that wants control over the access to data and content generated on their platform. It’s kind of a shame, actually, that a project like Lemmy doesn’t do just this…
Like Google Groups?
Would you know, by just looking at Google Groups, that it provides access to Usenet discussions? They have done all they can to obfuscate the matter.
This is the point I have been arguing over on the subreddit with a user who is looking at it merely from a technical angle instead of from a regular end-user angle. I have been suggested options like browser extensions.
My answer:
Even browser extensions are too much for wide market penetration. Only 42.7% of people use adblockers, despite the obvious benefits of doing so. Most people just don’t bother. They’re not gonna go through hoops just to post pictures of their dogs on a platform.
This might be a good thing. All that is required is a little research and gumption. Filtering out those without that means a higher grade of users.
That doesn’t test for their ability to meaningfully contribute to a discussion group. There would never be a robust group of woodworkers because the grandpa with years of professional woodworking experience has been excluded for using iPad. It will always be a group of tech focused people discussing woodworking.
I disagree. If they cannot follow basic instructions to get into a system, and we are talking very low bar here, they probably are not going to be able to successfully operate any kind of discussion forum.
I’ve come to believe that mass adoption, as we’re suggesting here, and high quality content are mutually exclusive. I agree that the current barrier to entry self-curates the content a bit but the same barriers will forever relegate it to the fringe.
It is the perpetual struggle: get too mainstream and you become Reddit or Facebag, stay hard to use and you get a buncha nerds but the content is better.