Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bbn!clsib21!blblbl!henrik
From: henrik@blblbl.UUCP (Larry DeLuca)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: The death of USENET
Summary: Chuq's proposals and a response
Message-ID: <564@blblbl.UUCP>
Date: 14 Jun 88 06:29:51 GMT
References: <7475@swan.ulowell.edu> <2645@rpp386.UUCP> <56228@sun.uucp> <8545@netsys.UUCP>
Organization: Camp Random, Lexington MA
Lines: 27


One should be careful not to trim the fat too much -- I've seen this happen
often.  The talk.* and rec.* etc. groups foster interest in many people who
might otherwise not take an interest in USENET -- while many of these could
be the dreaded, freeloading "end users" ;-) a number of them are also people
responsible for keeping it going.  While it would be nice to see comp.binaries.*
go away (I'm tired of dealing with some of the extra traffic) I think drying
things up so that all the "fun" things go away would be a mistake and that
the USENET would lose a lot of its character.

I think as more and more people start having Unix boxes at home the USENET
can become more of a "cottage industry" -- there will always be help from the
commercial sector, but the great "free rides" of the future will come from
people who are running public-access boxes out of their own homes.

As to the chameleon-like nature of the net and its ability to deal with
the loss of sites like ihnp4 -- much of the credit goes to the USENET 
administrators of backbone and semi-backbone sites who actually sit down
and think out the best connectivity for their little corner of the net -
it doesn't happen by accident.

					larry...

PLEEEEASE PEOPLE:  *Before* you flame me for being an obnoxious, freeloading
enduser -- I read my netnews at home and I speak to 8 other sites (5 of which
I exchange news with - 2 of which I am their primary feed), and I pay the 
phone bills to do this (as well as the electricity).