Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 23:33:30 -0800 From: NODEraser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Whatever happened to ye-olde UseNet newsgroups? About the only use I've heard for them lately, is pictures and video. And the subscription fees for that are pretty nasty. I remember that many ISPs offered free newsgroup access, but that was back in the days when text was the primary use for said medium.
The comp.sys.mac.*** hierarchy is still around and reasonably active. However, the proliferation of web based fora have significantly dented the number and frequency of participants. It's sad because it causes a dilution of the community and while you could pretty much count on meeting everyone active in Macdom on the news groups, now days, if you don't hit every website, you're going to miss some great people somewhere.
I was quite active reading those newsgroups and now rarely visit. I remember seeing Clark Martin's (a regular poster to this list) postings on Usenet regularly as well but can't say if he's still participating or not.
Comp.sys.mac.wanted, which was the best, free place to exchange, sell and buy Mac related stuff is pretty much dead now. Ebay killed it. Or rather the sellers and buyers have all moved to Ebay. It's too bad, because now you can pay huge fees to sell things (and indirectly to buy things) that once folks bought and sold for free. Plus, if an item was clearly bogus and listed in comp.sys.mac.wanted, someone was sure to drop by and post a message pointing out the blunder.
Ebay claims that they offer security and protection, but I've had more per-exchange problems on Ebay than I ever had in the news groups. In news groups, if someone was a scammer, his name got posted around enough to alert anyone willing to do a little searching, pretty quickly.
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