Need explanation about Usenet (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I found about Usenet and the sort of "hype" relative to it and I wonder some stuff.

Maybe I'm a bit old school but is this process not against the spirit of piracy,

be generous to share
fight against censorship and DCMA takedown
work in a decentralized way

Just wondered it, if someone wants to give his opinion

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[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I am wrong but you need to use usenet providers to download stuff right? So it's centralized and company based?

[-] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yes, that's how Usenet works. Although it is federated.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

Replying to this before OP asks.

Usenet is distributed across hundreds (thousands maybe?) of servers. It's centralized in that setting up your own server and getting the same access as joining an existing Usenet server is going to be very difficult (and with Usenet being used for privacy more and more, could be impossible due to admins not trusting a random new person), but in theory one could.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Usenet has splintered into text and piracy. Text is low volume and many servers can peer with yours for free. Piracy is more centralized, gets spammed like half a petabyte every day, we know that because 99% of "the posts" never get downloaded even once, it's commercial because of the huge storage requirements.

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