Re: You Can Use the Internet the Old-School Unixy Way With Shell Accounts

On 2025-04-11, Borax Man <[email protected]> wrote:
> ["Followup-To:" header set to alt.culture.usenet.]
> On 2025-03-22, yeti <[email protected]> wrote:
>> [email protected] (Paul W. Schleck) wrote:
>>
>>> "One reason to sign up for a shell account is that shell providers
>>> often have friendly user communities.
>>
>> (*) Most neighbours I have in pubnixens are just silent, but the few
>> that are not are worth staying.
>>
>
> I signed up to one or two, and that was my experience.  The *idea* was
> cool, but no one was really there.  The fundamental problem, I think, is
> its not a real community.  Its people who want to use a particular
> technology, but don't share any other interest.  It's like starting a
> group for people who like to meet in community centres.  Once you're
> there, then what?  You've already achieved your goal?  The Gemini
> community had the same problem.  They just liked the idea of using
> Gemini.  That doesn't make what you have to say more interesting.
>
> It was basically, at least to me, people who liked to use a particular
> means to an ends, but actually had no ends.  I do understand that the
> communication format does matter (part of the appeal of Usenet to me),
> but you need more than a shared desire to use the same format.  At least
> on Usenet, you can find others with similar interests.
>
>>> Many providers have their own IRC, Usenet, or bulletin boards where
>>> users can exchange messages.
>>
>> ...plus fediverse, too many different link aggregators and short message
>> like media, local or pubnix network wide bulletin boards, Gitea and Cgit
>> ... short: Too many services competing for users.  That yields lots of
>> sub-crowds with far to few comminication.
>>
>> The too many services trap.
>>
>
> These technologies can be useful for closed groups.  NNTP could be used
> for a company, like group email and centralised posting.  IRC useful as
> well.  I can see the need, and value for a private community, which may
> be large to do that (such as a social movement).  But we don't need more
> general "public" twitter clones.
>
>
>>> The users tend to be other Linux and Unix enthusiasts. These spaces
>>> are just fun to hang out in."
>>
>> See (*).
>>
>
> I'd be interested to see these fun places.

NNTP used to be something used internally in tech companies as an 
alternative to ticketing/bugzilla systems. If you set your newsreader
to fetch everything, NNTP was much better than anything else, you got
insta search and threading by default by using far less resources.