What commentary would that be? What irony is on display here?

Everything in this article applies to literally every communications media available on the internet. As group discourse moves across protocols and platforms, the same problems occur. I'm not sure there's a meaningful difference between "plonk" and "lol blocked".

Right, but Usenet died.

We might have different definitions of 'died.' Approximately a hundred thousand non-spam posts a month in the text heirarchy and hundreds of terabytes a month in the binaries seems like a living system to me. I accept that this might not be enough for others to bother with.

Not so fast. I still read about a dozen newsgroups.

Ok. I believe you. Are the newsgroups in the room with us right now?

Yep. I click on this icon in my MintLinux panel and voila!

     Tue Mar 5, 2024  4:50pm                              TASS News Reader 3.7.2 jvs [linux]
                                                                   Group Selection
 
 
     ->      1  comp.os.coherent                    
             2  comp.os.cpm                         
             3  comp.sys.northstar                  
             4  comp.unix.programmer                
             5  comp.os.linux.misc                  1   
             6  alt.autos.mercedes                  
             7  alt.sys.pdp8                        
             8  aus.ads.forsale.computers.used      
             9  comp.emulators.misc                 
            10  alt.os.linux.mint                   42  
            11  alt.os.linux.debian                 
            12  alt.sysadmin.recovery

Next we go to group 10 and select

     Tue Mar 5, 2024  4:57pm                              TASS News Reader 3.7.2 jvs [linux]
                                                                  alt.os.linux.mint
 
 
          1  firefox security oddity                                                       9 Mike Scott <[email protected]   
          2  Logitech keyboard replacement issues                                          8 azigni <[email protected]>                      
          3  Firefox-Ubuntu - How to restore tabs after <Ctrl>+<Alt>+<PrtSc>+REISUB ?      1 Adam <adam@no_thanks.com>                      
          4  dual boot - windows space requirement                                         6 TimW <[email protected]>                     
          5  [OT} New desktop part 6.                                                     11 pinnerite <[email protected]>                
          6  Lonely Obnoxious Cantankerous Auto-contradicting Senile Ozzie Troll Alert     1 Peeler <[email protected]>               
          7  Unable to install GRUB                                                       10 pinnerite <[email protected]>                
          8  Does anyone of you really think Mint Version 1000 will have the default a    24 Edmund <[email protected]>                    
          9  wine-wine                                                                     5 Monsieur <[email protected]>            
         10  Recovering data                                                               4 pinnerite <[email protected]>                
         11  Flight simulators                                                             4 pinnerite <[email protected]>                
         12  Alternative to Vidalia for a Tor server on another computer of a network        TeddyTheBest2004 <[email protected]> 
         13  No access to linux mint website??                                             2 TeddyTheBest2004 <[email protected]> 
         14  turbocad LE                                                                  10 TimW <[email protected]>                     
         15  Email host                                                                      Chris Holmes <[email protected]>         
         16  MySQL problem                                                                 9 pinnerite <[email protected]>                
         17  typing onto the desktop                                                       4 TimW <[email protected]>                     
         18  De ontwikkeling van AI.                                                       2 Edmund <[email protected]>                    
         19  Ignore wrong group.                                                             Edmund <[email protected]>                    
         20  Thunar bugs                                                                   2 Handsome Jack ([email protected])              
         21  Failed to read hd0                                                           27 RobH <[email protected]>                             +
         22  Stop stealing focus                                                           8 Monsieur <[email protected]>            
         23  Anyone using Hypnotix?                                                        2 pinnerite <[email protected]>                
         24  Thunderbird 115.6.0                                                           3 pinnerite <[email protected]>                
         25  VideoDownloader doesn't work anymore so I tried Youtube Downloader Plus.     29 Edmund <[email protected]>                       +
         26  Intel Iris XE graphics                                                        1 Jeff <[email protected]>                       +
         27  Clone a disk problem                                                          1 RobH <[email protected]>                             +
     ->  28  No access to restored files                                                   3 Jeff <[email protected]>                       +
 

EC 4 ME

And now we have walled gardens and monopolies abusing people to death.

To death, you say!