"Doug Payne" wrote in message
10 years. By contrast, Usenet news traffic has gone from 16% of our
total Internet bandwidth consumption in 1996, to almost unnoticeable
today at about 0.3%.

Assuming your figures are correct, then it would have been a classy act for
them to continue the providing of usenet access for those old-timers who use
it. Also assuming your figures are correct, the small percentage of users
who use it would be consuming negligible bandwidth. Rogers could have
capitalized on it as a "reward" for the continued support of their
customers. I dare say that if you put Lee Valley Tools in place of Rogers,
usenet access would have continued unabated.