Re: [OT] Sympatico Discontinues Newshosting...


"Chika" <miyuki@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4e2686f815miyuki@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In article <qbi9g.17847$M31.224592@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Dave Baranyi
<a_nospam.b_nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I just ran into this by accident because I didn't get a notice from
Bell...

Fortunately, I don't use the Bell newsservers for binary downloads, but
I bet that this is just a first step towards putting limits on
bandwidth usage... :-(

In theory, I'm now registered with the new service. I'll post some tests
later.

Hmm... this sounds an awful lot like something that happened a while ago
with Assholes On Line, and more recently in my country with Wanadoodoo.
Basically the ISP believes that they will save money by cutting news
hosting servers. At least that seems to be the gist of what you are saying
since the designers of the site you quote refuse to let me see the article
unless I use IE or Mozilla. So much for open standards...

However, to expand just a little (I just finished eating), there is a
running thought amongst some ISPs that suggests that Usenet is no longer
large enough to warrant support, given that some users (I can't give a
figure but I would suggest that it is fairly large to push this to the
point where this is happening) refuse to look at anything unless it is
packaged in tons of HTML with embedded fonts, colours, graphics and such.
It's presentation vs. content all over again, and the shallow masses are
winning by weight of numbers.


What is worse up here is that the major ISPs seem to think that the main use
for the Internet is email, and they pride themselves and advertise their
email products. But then, given that both Bell Canada and Rogers Cable have
very big vested interests in providing "entertainment" on a pay basis (both
by monthly service subscription and pay-per-view) they really don't want to
see the Internet taking more of that "entertainment dollar" away from them.

Which is, of course, incredibly stupid on their parts. I would much rather
pay only one vendor for a complete Internet service - email, webrowsing,
content uploading and downloading, etc,, than have to chase around multiple
vendors. And I am willing to pay for bandwidth - just guarantee access and
service performance.

Oh well, someday someone will understand, and will put the "cavemen"
companies out of their misery.

Dave Baranyi

--
//\ // Chika <zvlhxv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx - ROT13>
// \// Hitting Googlespammers with hyper-hammers!

... If my mail doesn't arrive. Does this mean he met a femail on the way?


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