J. Clarke wrote:
Jack said:
over 500 GIGABYTES in hard drive storage. I can tell you for sure,
Comcast can afford enough storage for WEEKS of usenet without
blinking an eye. Heck, for FREE google stores years of usenet crap without
blinking an eye.

Actually it's for advertising revenue, not "for free", and they don't
store binaries.

So are you saying Comcast and Verizon will drop Usenet because they
can't afford the storage?

Can your PC with 500 GIGABYTES in hard drive storage deliver up
binaries fast enough to satisfy a large number of simultaneous users?

No, but Comcast can, and that is what they sell, and the large graphics
transported is the reason high speed providers exist. Storage of Usenet
is a non-issue to companies like Verizon and Comcast.

Usenet has always been a loser for the ISPs. It's not
really enough of their business to warrant the expense.

Probably true, but do you know how much Comcast will save by
dropping the Binary ALT groups from their Giganews contract? Do you even
know how much Comcast pays Giganews for there complete service? I don't
know either, but I bet if just Verizon and Comcast dropped all newsgroup
services, most or ALL of the newsgroup providers would disappear.

Don't bet on it. USENET was around long before Verizon or Comcast.

Well, Verizon and Comcast was AT&T and they have been around longer than
Usenet, but so what? If the big high speed providers like Verizon and
Comcast drop all the binary groups, the binary groups will be as dead as
Usenet was before Usenet was accessible to the general public.

Why will the independents be dead?

Because not enough people will care enough to support them. My guess is
Giganews gets a ton more money from Comcast than all the individual
subscriptions combined. They will likely be the first to fall if the
big ISP's drop Usenet, and most of the rest will be gone right behind
them due to lack of interest. If only Verizon drops all binary groups,
their will be a huge dent to the alt binary groups to the point that
MOST if not all the binary groups will disappear, even though Comcast
still carries them.

As it stands, although a very large majority of internet users have
almost instant, free access to the newsgroups, only a very small
percentage take advantage of it. My guess is a significant percentage of
those folks will not go to the bother of actively searching out an
independent provider that they have to send extra money to get the
service. Some will of course, but will that be enough to sustain the
independent providers, or even Usenet itself?

Regardless of how it goes, I feel confident storage of Usenet is a
non-issue as the price of storage has gone through the floor years ago,
and is still falling at an amazing rate.
--
Jack
http://jbstein.com