I suspect culturally it would look a lot like amateur radio / ham radio, the majority constantly making leading questions about "does that still exist today for grandpas?" despite actual continuous long term demographic growth.

So the right people would find a way to hang out together while being marginalized by the masses.

I've stopped viewing this as a bad thing, though. I have more time and money than many of them to spend on the things I want to do. And when I complain about not having enough time to do what I want, I can actually list off all the things I'm doing that are filling up my schedule (and they're all productive, at least for personal development if not professional and social goals).

The subset of the internet that I use, and probably many here, is similar. Many of us probably skip Facebook (beyond perhaps casual browsing or maintaining our social network for communication), Buzzfeed and other time sink sites. Though HN can be pretty bad sometimes, hits just the right level of time sink + technical/professional interest.

Again, I don't consider this a bad thing. I have a lot better discussions with people on sites like this or because of the content from sites like this than I do for 99.9999% of what's on Reddit or FB or anything else.

"It's hard to communicate when someone is anti-consumer, and thinks the fact I watch TV is a reflection on my values"

The problem is when students graduate; no more shell account. Then what?

When AOL flipped the switch enabling USENET newsgroups in the fall of 1993 it was an "eternal September" because AOL had an endless continual stream of chuckleheads getting online foe the first time and not acclimating to existing net culture because they think the network is there to serve THEM.

I can't tell if you mean to imply that it's there to be served by them, or that it is there to serve "regulars".

I think he meant that USENET works best as a collaboration between users, whereas the users being complained about see it closer to visiting a restaurant where the other users are the waiters and they are the customer.

September was always a rough time on Usenet as all the noobs arrived; some old folks took the month off (or at least claimed to), coming back in October when they'd calmed down a bit. Once the public ISPs arrived it became like September the whole year round.