Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!cornell!rochester!rit!ultb!jdb9608
From: jdb9608@ultb.UUCP (J.D. Beutel )
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: The public's network of the future
Message-ID: <255@ultb.UUCP>
Date: 13 Dec 88 19:02:41 GMT
References: rec.humor.funny news.sysadmin
Reply-To: jdb9608@ultb.UUCP (J.D. Beutel (713ICS))
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology (Info Systems)
Lines: 25



The future of Usenet looks, to me, like it could be in trouble
because of the recent rumblings over racism and censorship.
Usenet carries alot of stuff that alot of people don't like--alt.sex
and alt.drugs, for example.  Several weeks ago, a newspaper in
Canada was turned onto the racism issue, and put pressure on the
University of Waterloo to have them reconsider carrying rec.humor.funny.
Recently, a newspaper in Montreal did a similar story.

As the public's interest in Usenet grows (the virus, for instance),
and Usenet grows, and the scope of Usenet grows (alt.sex, for instance),
I wouldn't be surprised if Usenet dropped some or all of its non-technical
newsgroups.  In that event, what would happen?

Considering the increasing power and ability of personal computers
(many of the latest can run Un*x, UUPC, UUCP even, and are part of Usenet),
the increasing speed of modems in the personal price range,
and the success of BBS based networks like FidoNet, would a non-public
(i.e., non-restricted) network pick up what Usenet might be forced to drop?

The volume of data carried on Usenet doubled, from 2 mb/day to 4 mb/day,
last year.  I wonder where it's all heading.  I'd like to hear
some informed speculation.  Wha'd ya think?

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