> The purpose for a PAID Usenet provider is for hosting binaries (i.e. piracy). You're paying someone for the bandwidth, and ignore or deal with the DMCA takedown notices. There is little to no reason to have a paid Usenet account just to read or post on pure text forums, and NOT download porn or other pirated content.

This may reflect the state today, but back in the late 90's and early 00's, it was not. Even for the pure text forums, you had to pay someone. In the earlier days it was included in the ISP package, so you wouldn't see the costs. Or via your university. But I distinctly remember when my university dropped USENET lots of people complained because they couldn't get free access elsewhere.

For me: I used BBS's before I used USENET. BBS groups ("conferences") were much more civil, and had much better discourse. The moderation was very effective. When I moved to USENET, it was quite chaotic by comparison. And then with the onset of spam, I went elsewhere.