Some people describe it as a network, some people describe it as a forum, yet somehow we have providers, and at the same time Usenet is seen as anonymous despite having a proxy in the form of a provider…for someone grown way after the Usenet prime, this all doesn’t make sense.
What is Usenet, actually? Is it a separate network? Is it layered on top of the Internet? If it’s the latter, why do I need some Usenet provider and why does it need to retain information (and why doing it for as long as possible is desirable?). Please help me connect the dots here.
Thanks!
Can I directly connect to someone on Usenet without using a provider? Or is it a necessary step? What do I lose? Are providers just storage bins for something that is not currently seeded by anyone else? Or do I fundamentally misunderstand something?
Its not peer to peer, you dont connect to a single poster, you need a provider. They arent “just” storage bins, usenet was primarily designed to be used for group discussions, but over time it became more used for piracy.
Guess it has to do with the way Usenet is organized, with all those newsgroups and stuff? Because I have hard time wrapping my head around why exactly you can’t “connect to a single poster”.