For anyone who has never read USENET and is wondering what it was, I could say it was a completely decentralised collection of discussion forums in which every message posted was automatically replicated to every other participating machine, with nobody in charge of the whole thing, because before the web and broadband and instant global communications that was the only way you could implement a global discussion forum.
The technology is still there, still running, but like an aged relative with a glorious career now over, it’s not what it was.
One sad minor consequence is that A Fire Upon The Deep is less funny and interesting now that most/all new readers will have no personal experience with Usenet.
For anyone who has never read USENET and is wondering what it was, I could say it was a completely decentralised collection of discussion forums in which every message posted was automatically replicated to every other participating machine, with nobody in charge of the whole thing, because before the web and broadband and instant global communications that was the only way you could implement a global discussion forum.
But that isn’t what it was.
This is what it was.
The technology is still there, still running, but like an aged relative with a glorious career now over, it’s not what it was.
One sad minor consequence is that A Fire Upon The Deep is less funny and interesting now that most/all new readers will have no personal experience with Usenet.