[gopher] Re: This mailing list

[Cameron Kaiser <spectre@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I was always wondering why the gopher mailing list is more popular than
> the newsgroup comp.infosystems.gopher...

Because Usenet, unfortunately, has kind of been slowly withering for years
and many ISPs are taking advantage of the recent shortsighted legal actions
in the USA to simply drop it.

For example, I pay an extra $13/mo for my Usenet access, and most people
aren't willing to if their ISP doesn't already offer it. My ISP does have
a subcontracted news-swerver somewhere, but I prefer Newscene, so I stay
with them. (I used to run my own spool back when it was still possible to
do so on a relatively small system over a suck feed. Those days are gone.)

It's really a significant barrier to entry for more users than I think many
people realize, particularly those of us who use Usenet regularly. The new
Eternal September comes from Google Groups, but Google wants people in their
walled garden, so Usenet is still not quite a first-class citizen to them
either.

-- 
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
  Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser@xxxxxxxxxxxx
-- Why do we scoff at fortune tellers, yet listen to economists? --------------