In article >,
"jmcquown" > wrote:

> "Dan Abel" > wrote in message
> ...

> > Back in the bad old days, access to newservers was very tightly
> > controlled. People were always asking, and the answer was always the
> > same, you have to pay. That was at least one reason that people paid
> > for ISPs instead of free access. I believe that GoogleGroups was the
> > first free newsgroup access.

> Nope, Prodigy allowed ng access and AOL, too, starting back in the 1980's.
> GoogleGroups is relatively new in the grand scheme of things.

The key word is "free". I believe my statement was wrong, but since
both Prodigy and AOL charged for access, they weren't the first free
access to ng. To be clear, Prodigy and AOL didn't charge their own
customers extra for ng access, but they didn't allow non-customers any
access to ng. This is how my current ISP works. As long as I log in
through my ISP, I can get right to ng. If I log in some other way, I am
prompted for my account and password to get into their newserver.

--
Dan Abel
Petaluma, California USA