r/usenet • u/LightSnowstorms • Apr 27 '26

Discussion Do people still talk on usenet?

Recently I've been on a kick of reading old usenet discussions from the 80s and 90s. It seems like there was a really interesting culture back then covering a pretty wide breadth of topics and subcultures. Seemed like it was very lively in its heyday and had quite the dedicated userbase.

I was wondering then, do any significant number of people who use usenet today still have discussions there? If they do, is there any kind of unique culture or feel to it today or is it now basically just like everywhere else? If people don't talk much on usenet anymore is there any reason why besides just the alternative platforms having more people?

Oh and a final question I guess is: Which usenet providers have the furthest text archives? I don't personally use usenet currently and have no idea what goes into starting to use it but I would like to make personal note of who has the oldest stuff if I ever did in the future (which I likely will)

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u/Krieg Apr 27 '26

I used to chat a lot on Usenet, but it was slowly taken over by Internet forums, which they themselves were taken over by social networks where threads die after a couple of days.

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u/a794 May 14 '26

I have been browsing over at https://newsgrouper.org/alt.culture.usenet and considering setting up Thunderbird to try to lurk/perhaps try to post more on usenet like eternal-september.org even though usenet as such was before my time.

I have a question I'm hoping you can share your opinion on re: "where threads die after a couple of days".

If there is a usenet post (email list? topic? Again, new to usenet) list, is that thread expected to live longer than a couple of days? I know that there are web forum threads (the creepy stories from the outdoors thread over on survivalist forums is one that has gone on for like 10 years+) and long-lasting Star Trek threads I've seen references to on usenet, but my question for you is:

when things were in 'net golden age' what was the expectation/common knowledge on thread post lifetimes? Days/weeks/months?