Re: usenet access and the future of comp.sys.apple2

[dog_cow@macgui.com (D Finnigan)]

Michael Black wrote:
> 
> Fifteen years ago, most people with internet access at least knew about
> the newsgroups, now so many more people, ie the common population that
> has come to the internet, have access that the percentage that know about
> Usenet has become miniscule.

You're definitely right about "the common population." We're pretty
fortunate here that the level of discussion, which is a function of the
mental level of the participants, has remained nearly constant over the 20
year history of this group. The posts per month average is about half of
what it was 18-20 years ago, but that just demonstrates the declining
popularity and use of the Apple II platform. No big surprise. This isn't the
case for very many Usenet newsgroups. Too many newsgroups, and even
comp.sys.apple2 itself around 10 years ago, tend to be dominated by a
behavior which I call "peasantry."

Keeping a limited audience is good for the survival of the technical Usenet
groups. Of course, the first logical map of Usenet was simple:

duke --- unc

In other words, the only people who had access to Usenet were those having a
college degree, or those in process of obtaining a college degree.

-- 
Mac GUI Vault - A source for retro Apple II and
Macintosh computing.
http://macgui.com/vault/