Sonic.net

Otto wrote:Dane - your points are all valid and from a business standpoint, you really don't have a choice but to let usenet die a quiet death. From an end-user standpoint, we pay for two usenet feeds as part of our service contract. I'm very happy with the overall service and quality of Sonic but if I choose to subscribe to another news service (assuming the demise of news.sonic also means the discontinuation of supernews.sonic as well) then that price point starts to not look so attractive. FTTH would be nice but where I live, I doubt seriously that I will ever see Sonic fiber in my home.

Yes, I certainly see this point. One counter item to consider is that Sonic is a very good source of uncapped bandwidth, so if Usenet is a reasonable amount of traffic for you, it's nice not to have an X gigabyte cap on your monthly usage.

Usenet; can you get access to it elsewhere? Yes, through Google Groups or any of the outside Usenet services.

Can you tell me one you recommend as trustworthy not to be filtering what we're allowed to see?

OK, I'm a fossil, I signed up for Sonic to get Usenet, at 1200 baud, when Netcom was bought by Earthlink and, that same night, every file on the Netcom system was made world-readable.
Gee, why might that have happened?
http://www.sfgate.com/technology/comput ... 003666.php
http://articles.latimes.com/2000/oct/09 ... s/fi-33816

Who knows what's in your Internet feed?
From Iron Fist to Invisible Hand: The Uneven Path of Telecommunications ...
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0804779805
Irene Wu - 2008 - ‎Business & Economics

You're local and I consider you a reliable feed open to whatever the world has to offer.

I don't trust Google. I don't know who the other sources are that I could trust.

300 users. How much money would you need to make Usenet reliable here again?
Seriously, can you put a ballpark number on it? $100 apiece? $500 apiece?

Let me ask the underlying question a different way.

Do you feel reluctant to continue to offer Usenet access unfiltered, because of any possibly annoying scrutiny from Homeland Security or copyright police or otherwise attract unwanted attention?

Like I said, I'm a fossil.

Who do you trust, who you'd recommend I trust?

If you can live without binary groups then you might consider:
www.eternal-september.org

My suggestions would be Eternal September or Google Groups for free access to text discussion groups, and a service such as Supernews, Giganews, Easynews or similar for non-text groups.

You can find a list of some options and summary information about each here: http://lifehacker.com/five-best-usenet- ... 1611239789

Dane, Lifehacker says:

four out of your top five are resellers from the same Tier 1 provider, which is great for availability and broad use, but means that while all of these are great for a primary account, if you're looking for a backup block account in case something you're looking for has been taken down or censored, you'll want a different provider.

Sonic has been that different provider.

What would it cost for the 300 of us to support you keeping Usenet access?
Imagine?

I really never got an answer to my question about supernews.sonic. When news.sonic is no longer offered does that also mean that supernews.sonic will go away as well? If supernews.sonic is still offered after news dies, can the speed be increased?

ankh wrote:Dane, Lifehacker says:

four out of your top five are resellers from the same Tier 1 provider, which is great for availability and broad use, but means that while all of these are great for a primary account, if you're looking for a backup block account in case something you're looking for has been taken down or censored, you'll want a different provider.

Sonic has been that different provider.

What would it cost for the 300 of us to support you keeping Usenet access?
Imagine?

Unfortunately, the issue is available system architecture and administration, a human resource bottleneck more than just financial. A Usenet server array isn't something purchased and deployed, it's a platform that must be built. We need to focus our resources on last-mile access, rather than a service that can be obtained elsewhere easily.

Otto wrote:I really never got an answer to my question about supernews.sonic. When news.sonic is no longer offered does that also mean that supernews.sonic will go away as well? If supernews.sonic is still offered after news dies, can the speed be increased?

Yes, it will go too.

Another possibility is Agent Usenet from Forte, the company who makes the Agent newsreader. Different plans are available, and a one-month free trial is available. People who buy the Agent newsreader can get a three-month trial.

in case something you're looking for has been taken down or censored, you'll want a different provider.

it's a platform that must be built

So the "five recommended sources|" article warns that four of the listed five are resellers.

So that's really two recommended sources.

But -- which two are actually different?

Look, I don't want to be too cynical here. (Is "too cynical" even a thing?)

I've been trusting Sonic for Usenet because back in the day, that's what I got, or thought I was getting.

Not filtered, not prettied up, not just what's for sale, but whatever I or someone else put into Usenet, available.

I don't want to find, some day, that it's too late for me to build my own "platform that must be built" to use the Internet, because by then I won't have any source other than untrustworthy intermediaries treating me like a goose, nailing my feet to the floor and force-feeding me until my liver's ready to make pate'.

Which is how it feels to be a "consumer" these days.

Okay, I know "don't mourn, organize!" and the modern version, "don't boo, vote!"

Is there anybody local to the Bay Area who's got access people can consider worth supporting?