On Sat, 04 Feb 2017 19:49:33 -0600, wrote:

I miss those days. The majority of newsgroups are either dead or filled
with morons or off topic political based fighting and name calling these
days. There were many worthwhile newsgroups that I used to enjoy, and I
wont even go there anymore.

The surest sign of success is abuse and pollution. Usenet is
obviously successful.

I wrote this rant on Usenet "personalities" maybe 20 years ago when
observed the same problems you've mentioned:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/crud/genesis.txt

I cant understand where everyone went.

Probably Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageRadios/
https://www.reddit.com/r/vintageaudio/
https://www.reddit.com/r/audiorepair/

I know almost everyon has an
account with that miserable facebook these days (except me), but I cant
say I have ever seen any useful discussions on FB.

I have a Facebook account and I'm not afraid to use it. Mostly, I
hang round two local groups that deal with the usual neighborhood
problems. It works fairly well, and much better than the old bulletin
board outside the post office or market. It might work better if I
take the time to learn how to navigate the Facebook maze.

My only affordable internet access is still
dialup, because that's all there is in this rural area where I live, and
bloated websites like FB and most of the news media sites wont even load
anymore).

Check into alternatives to cable and telco internet. There are plenty
of WISP's (wireless internet service providers).
http://www.wispa.org/Directories/Find-a-WISP
Maybe share a wireless backhaul connection with the neighbors. I
setup a few such systems using various backhauls (including
satellite). They were slow and clumsy, but sufficient as the
alternative would have been dialup or no internet.

Also, you can really cut down on the traffic by using the mobile URL's
instead of the usual URL. Try it:
https://m.facebook.com
https://m.google.com
etc... You may need to install a browser addon that fakes the user
agent string, so that the web pile thinks you're using a smartphone.
http://www.howtogeek.com/113439/how-to-change-your-browsers-user-agent-without-installing-any-extensions/
For example:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-switcher/
There are others. There are also browser tweaks for dialup:
http://lifehacker.com/140120/geek-to-live--how-to-survive-a-slow-internet-connection
Or, you can switch to a text based browser.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text-based_web_browser
However, I'm not sure it will work with Facebook.


--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558