That has never been my experience. I either paid for it, or set it up for myself, until I discovered the FU Berlin service that became NIN, and used that as well, in a vaguely bemused way. To me, free news- servers are a daft idea, since it's a lot of work for precisely nothing---there isn't even kudos or prestige involved, I don't think; not in any public sense. Unless the equipment really was junk AND you have the running of it so sorted-out that it's `fire&forget' (and I don't believe there's news-server software out there that works that well) you are quite literally offering quite a lot of something for a big fat nothing, and I don't see how that makes sense. The motivation must be somewhere, but it beats me where.
Anyone that comes up with a cogent argument is simply ridiculed with a rather pathetic straw man, huh? People that know far more than you do about the topic you're hopelessly failing to keep up with are suggesting that when you're in a hole, you should stop digging, butcan you put that shovel down?
Just as there's no given law that Gmail or Yahoo or Myspace (or even Google Groups) will continue to be free for users. But given that something has always been free in the past, within a climate (on the internet) where most other popular services are also free (for users), there's nothing wrong with expecting it to be.
I doubt so many people would have jumped on Sofa Spud if he'd said that he expected email, rather than Usenet, to be free.
There are histories of Usenet out there. Read one. If you were a student using a university's news server, it was bundled into fees, for example. It wasn't free. I dunno about anyone else, but I am not here to give you a history lesson.
#1-#3 are paid for by advertising. #4 and #5 are paid for by Microsoft and advertising. #6, MySpace? Advertising. #7, Wikipedia. Oh, there's an interesting one. It's free at the point of use if you're a sponger, but you can donate if you choose to. Ever donated to Wikipedia?
eBay is most definitely not free at the point of use, unless perhaps you only ever buy. Every single seller pays for it, during every single sale.
Mostly, though, the model is `someone's marketing budget' be it the owner of the site, or paid advertising. So far, the advertisers must reckon it's worth it. Beats me how. Back in the days when I was helping to run the world's first internet search engine, it was a constant struggle to cope with the required capacity and were on the edge of either giving up or asking for a real budget just when Altavista appeared, at which point, suddenly, no-one much wanted to use JumpStation any more. The notion of paying for it with advertising a) never occurred to us and b) wouldn't have been possible in the circumstances.
Count me in.
So, you're allowed to insult people, roundly, but if anyone insults you they lose because they aren't sticking to the point?
The motivation is to due with the people talking to one another. No-one will ever become famous or rich running usenet servers but that's not the point.
Russ Allbery had something to say about this, over 10 years ago now:
Absolutely. I set up and ran a substantial Usenet server for some years, as part of my job at the time. It was a major load on the system and, eventually, in the face of no new hardware and other demands on what we had, it had to stop. The disk requirement is bad enough, but the fact that it's millions of variable size files makes it difficult to handle, and to manage the filesystem. I'm more than happy to pay a small amount (or even a larger amount) for the service.
And yet in the next sentence you admit to using NIN when it was free. Are you even aware of what you're writing?
Just because you have no respect for the people that do it, don't assume other people feel the same way. In fact within the Usenet community and between admins, there is enormous respect for the people who provide free Usenet and for the free servers that exist now and have existed in the past.
Just as everything else seems to beat you.
The motivation is first being interested in, and being competent at, running a Usenet server (something you clearly are not) and second in wanting to provide Usenet access to people for free and/or believing usenet should be freely (any any sense) accessible.
The funniest thing is you and Bob think it's weird to want to do that, but you and Bob are the "weirdos", because all you can think of is the bottom line. It's far more the 'ethos' of Usenet to want to provide free (any any sense) access. Your personal experience or opinion is irrelevant.
If it wasn't for spam and k00ks, there would in fact be more free news servers, since net abuse is usually the reason they are shut down.
You can yap on as much as you like about how much you know about this subject, but you've demonstrated over and over you actually know f*ck all about it. If you can't even understand why people give their time and energy to a community, you're a lost cause anyway.
What he said was neither cogent nor an argument. It was simply an unproven statement that made little sense. Though it was marginally better than calling me "naive" when he's clearly oblivious to half the things that have been written in this thread. My reply was also not a straw man argument, pathetic or not.
Yet again you try and have your cake and eat it. If you can't answer the question (and you can't, otherwise you would) then don't reply. I'm pretty sure that's what Bob's tactic will be.
So you can understand how they're paid for but you still can't grasp how a free Usenet server might be funded?
Yes, quite a lot of stuff seems to be beating you in this thread doesn't it. Makes me wonder why you're even trying your luck here when you are so admittedly clueless about every subject.
ROFL
Another classic 'Uncle Albert' moment from Sam.
Is this another one of your chat up lines? I thought it was Bob's employer that invented the internet, not you.
Hear that Bob? Even sam thinks you're naive to the point of absurdity. Either that or Sam, like you Bob, is stupid to the point of absurdity and, like you Bob, can't even follow a thread.
Can't be that though because, like you Bob, Sam has appparently been on Usenet for decades and is a pioneer of the internet.
Calling someone an idiot is only an insult if they're not an idiot. Bob is. And so are you.
No. Just yet another conclusive demonstration that you're utterly clueless.
I made no such claim. When I state that I ran one of the computers that hosted what is widely accepted as the world's first search engine, it's just a statement that happens to be true. It was called JumpStation, and it was developed by an ex-student of this department who was, at the time, working for the site's central computing service. I don't know where he is or what he's doing now, and at the time no-one around here knew what he was doing was astonishing; it was just an interesting way to spend his weekends. That's one of the reasons it's so poorly remembered. If we'd realised, we would have made more of a fuss.
So, you can't even follow a thread, or an argument? You don't understand who my `Count me in' was aimed at?
You're either delusional, plain stupid, or trolling, or a mixture of any of the three. I am not continuing this until you're basically competent to do so. Come back when you actually know something about the situation. All this thread is achieving now is to make you look more and more stupid, and that doesn't seem fair on anyone, including you.
I didn't make the claim either. But he's getting desperate now. I merely pointed out that we sold Usenet service to people in the UK. If you (Sam) were or are in academia, I'm sure you know where I work! :-)
For a while, this place (indirectly, at least) paid you for it, AIUI. Plus, your employer is a lot closer to the claim of having invented the Internet than most.
I'm not hiding anything, it seems, and neither are you. Froot Bat, on the other hand...
You didn't even read my early posts. The first you saw of them was when I posted parts of them to show you were arguing about nothing; accusing me of saying one thing when I'd actually said the opposite.
You are basically just a gobshite, and unlike you and your lapdog, Sam, who you are telling what to do, I'll happily wipe the floor with uninformed idiots like you any time, for as long as you want.
I'm not a `self-proclaimed Internet pioneer' and never have been. I'm not an Internet pioneer. I run computers and networks for a living, and have done for almost quarter of a century. What do you do for a living? Where are you? What is your name? Why should I bother debating anything at all with an anonymous poster that doesn't know his debating arse from his discussing elbow?
Bollocks. As if I'm producing this stuff for a peer-reviewed journal? Like I care about the odd typo, etc? You're clutching at straws because you have no case, and never have had.
Because no fuss was ever made of it because no-one around here realised it was a big deal. Tough shit. That one, I would admit, I lost.
Consider
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the two are mentioned in the same sentence, as equals. The World Wide Web Worm (aka Wandex) was in development at the same time. Like a lot of inventions (see also powered flight, incandescent lamps, TV) several people had the same idea at the same time. This is how progress works. It's all in the detail, and at the time, it was clear to us that JumpStation was the superior product, because it presented its results the way modern search engines do, while Wandex didn't until rather later on. Wandex crawled more intelligently, though.
If you want to see it that way, fine. You still have nothing to win with, and never have had.
Crushing defeat? You haven't even found a weapon yet.
You just made this rule up on the spur of the moment, did you? In which RFC is it covered? Either you know fine well what the remark meant, in context, or you're too stupid to be here.
I have never admitted you are right. For the record, you are wrong, completely and utterly wrong, and always have been, and if you feel there's somewhere in this thread where I've admitted you are right, you are indeed delusional. You've demonstrated, as detailed above, that you can't even follow the argument, so how you can claim I've ever admitted you're right is truly astonishing.
stuff about collecting only "" information isn't quite right, I don't think, but I have no solid evidence to back that up. As I recall, it started by looking at just the page's section, but when he realised that mostly he was getting the whole page anyway he started to have the crawler look at document headings as well. Something like that.
Well if you don't even bother to get the basics right when talking about something as simple as the web, why should anyone take you seriously when you're talking about running networks for a living? Perhaps by "running networks" you meant "sratching my arse".
Perhaps nobody realised it was a big deal because it wasn't a big deal. With every successful idea there's a hundred unsuccessful ones. Most people don't bother bragging about the latter, let alone claim to have been the very first.
Wandex is not even mentioned on that page. WWW Worm is not WWW Wanderer. I guess this is yet another "typo" of yours is it?
Win what? I posted about 4 articles which you are completely unable to even respond to. That how you win is it? By shouting your mouth off then running away? This JumpStation stuff isn't even related to the discussion, it's just you changing the subject to deflect attention from the ill-informed and contradictory rubbish you've posted about Usenet. Hell even with this search engine stuff you claim to have been involved in from the very start you don't appear to have the first clue what you're talking about.
You started off this argument by slagging off free servers or saying they were not financially viable, or they were bad or that you don't believe in them and then ended up admitting you "take" two free servers that are needed by people with no other access, even though you have access to two more, while simultaneously calling _me_ a sponger even though I don't use any free server.
You claimed to have run a news server one minute and then in the next breath stated you don't know what people get out of running them.
Then there was the drivel about how T&C are not valid or applicable if you're not paying for a service.
You basically talk so much shit you can't even keep up with it.
It's not a rule Sam, it's a convention that everyone in any forum, Usenet or Web, understands. If you want to aim a comment at someone, you reply to them; you don't reply to someone else entirely. Stop trying to dig your way out of your mistake in such a ridiculous way, it's embarrassing.
Oh, I know what you _thought_ you meant, but that's not what you said is it? Because in your haste to make a smart arse remark you either didn't understand what you replied to or you just forgot who you were replying to.
And who is this comment aimed at? Bob? Or yourself? You'll have to be more specific now Sam, because apparently I need an RFC or some rule to know for sure who you are aiming your comments at. According to you, it's not good enough for to assume that since you're replying to me, you're actually aiming your comments at me.
So you are now retracting your statement of agreement with me that non-binary Usenet servers are relatively inexpensive to run?
You: It does indeed cost not a lot to run a non-binary news service.
Go ahead, stick your fingers in your ears and shout "La La La" some more.
You conveniently missed off the `however, this is still an infinite multiple of nothing' or words to that effect. I could look up the exact quote, but in the face of blatant duplicity and continuing anonymity, why should I bother? Hence, I don't agree with you, concerning the costs of running news servers, and never will, because they are not free to run, and never will be. Exactly what I mean by `not a lot' is, of course, an undefined quantity; apart from anything else, it cost me, personally, a great deal of entirely unrewarded time to set up the two I did for myself. You might not set a great deal against my time, of course; I was, after all, only scratching my arse and cleaning toilets, after all.
OK, so I mixed up World Wide Web Worm with World Wide Web Wanderer. I made a mistake. I apologise. It only goes to further demonstrate my point that there were a lot of similar tools around at the time, of which JumpStation was, in my humble opinion, easily the best. Until Altavista arrived, when someone (DEC) had clearly large pots of development cash to throw at the problem, it was the best search engine available. That was just after the point where it was realised that, in order to make it any better, someone was going to have to ask for some money.
The others were mostly obvious extensions of web-metrics tools; JumpStation was a genuine, first-principles attempt to use a WWW form as the user interface to a WWW index generated by a crawler.
See also:
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details of a conference at which this achievement was recognised, although JumpStation had already been in action for quite a while before `early 1994'. The press office was very interested for a while, but we couldn't locate the inventor, so we played it down.
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