What are the reasons NNTP and Usenet got essentially discarded?
Just a guess: having to install a special client? The browser is everywhere (it comes with the operating system), so you can use web pages on your own computer, at school, at work, at neighbor’s computer, at web cafe, etc. If you have to install your own client, outside of your own computer, you are often not allowed to do it. Also, many people just don’t know how to install programs.
And when most people use browsers, most debates will be there, so the rest will follow.
The amount of people using the Internet and the Web has been increasing geometrically for more than two decades. New users joined new services, perhaps for the reasons I gave in my other comment. Soon enough the existing usenet users were greatly outnumbered, so they went to where the content and the other commenters were.
It’s not an explanation for why new users didn’t join existing services like Usenet, just for why even the people already using Usenet eventually left.
Just a guess: having to install a special client? The browser is everywhere (it comes with the operating system), so you can use web pages on your own computer, at school, at work, at neighbor’s computer, at web cafe, etc. If you have to install your own client, outside of your own computer, you are often not allowed to do it. Also, many people just don’t know how to install programs.
And when most people use browsers, most debates will be there, so the rest will follow.
That doesn’t explain why people abandoned Usenet. They had the clients installed, they just stopped using them.
The amount of people using the Internet and the Web has been increasing geometrically for more than two decades. New users joined new services, perhaps for the reasons I gave in my other comment. Soon enough the existing usenet users were greatly outnumbered, so they went to where the content and the other commenters were.
Yes, the network effect. But is that all?
It’s not an explanation for why new users didn’t join existing services like Usenet, just for why even the people already using Usenet eventually left.
The e-mail client that came pre-installed with Windows 95 and several later Windowses also included newsgroup functionality.