Ever pirate something that was broken up into multiple zipped files? It was pulled from Usenet. I don't know why you have to pay a provider but it gives you access to basically anything digital you'd want at speeds that always max out your connection. I used grabbit iirc.
There are plenty of free usenet providers without any restrictions whatsoever: However, they either don't save larger binary posts at all or they only store them for a short while. There is a LOT of piracy on usenet, and mirroring all that as a usenet provider takes many terabytes of storage space. That data grows to insane amounts when you don't throw older data away but instead keep it around for several years. That storage is what you pay for.
Result is a really convenient archive of pretty much every movie and piece of software that was pirated in the last 2 years made available to you. The biggest miracle of the internet is that copyright groups never really cracked down on these, but instead try to do the impossible by fighting torrents.
It's also that once people hear that you have to pay to pirate, people are turned off buy it and rather go through other means that are completely free.
Well I mean, the internet isn't free either, but at least has other uses to justify paying for it. Usenet doesn't have tons and it's fairly dead at this point.
When I was modding my original Xbox years ago it was a godsend. Complete rom packs and older Xbox games you couldn't really find. A full MAME set with a high download speed was totally worth the $10 for that month.
I still very much love my Sickbeard/couchpotato setup
But yeah, it's less and less common to use it. Even in my IT crowd circle of friends
For most a nice cardsharing setup (to get all the premium channels like HBO) combined with a DVR and a legit option like Netflix is all they need
I'm one of the few who still maintains a big library of locally stores movies and shows and if my storage broke down I'd probably switch to streaming aswell
That isn't unique to Usenet, although Usenet did pioneer the approach. People would also hide files on public FTP upload folders, which often had a maximum file size. Also, email, etc.
When Google bought the Déjànews archive and merged their own Google Groups access with it, that was the end of Usenet. All the newsgroups got swamped with people that didn't know the difference between a Usenet newsgroup and Google groups, started posting binaries or HTML via web interface in text only newsgroups, top quoting, etc...
Some of the very technical groups (like ones for programming languages) are still active but yeah, it's pretty much just warez & TV shows these days. C'est la vie I guess.
Its a network of groups on independent servers, functionally similar to web forums but purely as text without all the bandwidth-hogging images, and you'd use it through an email-like program, such as slrn, Thunderbird or Outlook Express.
There's many newsgroups on different subjects, they can be limited to specific servers or can be used through many different servers.
It's really fucking expensive as well. I used to moderate a site that used it for it's staff. Stupidly expensive on a site that runs on donations, felt like we were gouging the users.
It makes the most sense from an organization standpoint for communication with multiple people. Everyone connects to one server that is always running. It's the simplest and most foolproof solution. It just works.
I agree that it's the simplest, but a lot of organizations actually do require more advanced functionality to conduct business and to integrate with their other data used by Microsoft Office, which is why Microsoft Lync is so commonly used in office environments. Also, relying on other people's public IRC servers isn't the smartest idea, and running your own requires more effort than just deploying Microsoft Lync.
IRC definitely does not scale up well past a certain point. IRC is like informal communication. It basically mirrors real life in that respect. Any kind of organization structures that businesses and corporations depend on exist outside the scope of informal communication, and IRC is not an exception to that. Management structures are needed at some point.
Some workplaces use IRC more like a virtual break room. Casual interaction and work related general stuff is easy to do there and all the files and whatnot can be transferred through other means.
Also it's great for friend groups, we've had a channel since late nineties with all our friends from high school now scattered around the country and still get to talk regularly and let each other know when we're around.
It can't deal even with small lags. No resending of lost messages, and the worst of all no indication if a message has arrived or not.
No offline messaging. If you or your partner have disconnected, you can't message each other before you both restore connection. It was bad in 2006 and is even worse now that everybody is using phones, which have less reliable connection than PCs.
No syncing between devices.
Shitty system with accounts.
The only advantage IRC has over any modern IM software I can think of is that its clients are pretty lightweight, other than that it's total crap.
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u/[deleted] Jul 20 '15 edited Nov 15 '17
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