On 2006-07-17, Dave Smith > wrote:

> Bummer Kathy. My ISP dropped news groups last month.

This trend is going to continue. Usenet (newsgroups) is the *******
stepchild of the net, an outdated artifact of the original internet
and it's community of university/lab geeks. Now, with it's binary
groups, it can consume ungodly amounts of bandwidth and still generate
zero revenue. It's no wonder more ISP's are dumping or charging extra
for it. I don't imagine there will be too many "freebies" around much
longer. That, or they will be "no-binary" offerings. But, I think
$10-12 per month is ridiculous. I can see $25-50 a year, but no more.
Too many website forums to tolerate that level of greed.

nb