Usenet (User's Network) is an ancient [Internet](internet.md) discussion network -- a [forum](forum.md) -- that existed long before the [World Wide Web](www.md). At the time it was very popular, it was THE place to be on the Internet (for those who actually were on the Internet, that is), but nowadays it's been forgotten by the mainstream, sadly hardly anyone remembers it.
Back in the day there were no [web browsers](browser.md), there was no web. Users of the Internet could communicate e.g. by [email](email.md) or by directly connecting to servers and leaving messages for others there -- these servers were called [BBS](bbs.md)es and were another popular kind of [social network](social_network.md) at the time. Usenet was a bit different as it was [decentralized](decentralization.md) -- it wasn't stored or managed on a single [server](server.md), but on many independent servers that provided users with access to the network. This access was (and is) mostly paid (to [lurk](lurk.md) for free you can search for Usenet archives online). To access Usenet a **newsreader** program was needed, it was kind of a precursor to web browsers (nowadays newsreaders are sometimes built into e.g. email clients). Usenet was lots of time not moderated and anonymous, i.e. kind of free, you could find all kinds of illegal material there.
Usenet invented many things that survive until today such as the words *[spam](spam.md)* and *[FAQ](faq.md)* as well as some basic concepts of how discussion forums even work.
Usenet was originally [ASCII](ascii.md) only, but people started to post binary files encoded as ASCII and there were dedicated sections just for posting binaries, so you co go [piiiiiiiiirating](piracy.md).
It worked like this: there were a number of Usenet servers that all collaborated on keeping a database of *articles* that users posted (very roughly this is similar to how [blockchain](blockchain.md) works nowadays); the servers would more or less mirror each other's content. These servers were called *providers* as they also allowed access to Usenet but this was usually for a fee. The system uses a [NNTP](nntp.md) (Network News Transfer Protocol) protocol. The articles users posted were also called *posts* or *news*, they were in plain text and were similar to email messages. Other users could reply to posts, creating a discussion thread. Every post was also categorized under certain **newsgroup** that formed a hierarchy (e.g. *comp.lang.java*). After so called *Big Renaming* in 1987 the system eventually settled on 8 top level hierarchies (called the *Big 8*): comp.* (computers), news.* (news), sci.* (science), rec.* (recreation), soc.* (social), talk.* (talk), misc.* (other) and humanities.* (humanities). There was also another one called alt.* for controversial topics. According to [Jargon File](jargon_file.md), by 1996 there was over 10000 different newsgroups.
Usenet was the pre-[web](www.md) web, kind of like an 80s [reddit](reddit.md) which contained huge amounts of historical information and countless discussions of true computer [nerds](nerd.md) which are however not easily accessible anymore as there aren't so many archives, they aren't well indexed and Usenet access is normally paid. It's a shame. It is possible to find e.g. initial reactions to the [AIDS](aids.md) disease, people asking what the [Internet](internet.md) was, people discussing future technologies, the German cannibal (Meiwes) looking for someone to eat (which he eventually did), [Bezos](bezos.md) looking for [Amazon](amazon.md) programmers, a heated debate between [Linus Torvalds](torvalds.md) and [Andrew Tanenbaum](tanenbaum.md) about the best OS architecture (the "Linux is obsolete" discussion) or [Douglas Adams](douglas_adams.md) talking to his fans. There are also some politically incorrect groups like *alt.niggers* [lol](lol.md).
{ I mean I don't remember it either, I'm not that old, I've just been digging on the Internet and in the archives, and I find it all fascinating. ~drummfish }
