On 27 Jan 2005 04:41:17 -0800, "yodedude2" wrote:

Hi Y'all, just to pass along the news that AOL is dropping their
newsgroup reader service. "...discontinued in early 2005", their
message says. Oh, they also apologize for the inconvenience. They
must have read too many Douglas Adams novels. snip

AOHell's mismanagement continues unabated. Many internet pundits are
deciphering AOHell's action to be exactly the same as their attempts
to cut off access to IRC awhile back...they view the Internet as
"competition." AOHell is a repository for the clueless, a sort of
"Internet for Dummies." Those who are truly clueless can't figure out
how to do anything other than load their bloatware and do whatever
AOHell tells them to do...sort of like "goo goo groopz." Actually, I
welcome AOHell's dumping of Usenet access...it means less trolls and
spammers! Now, if we could only get rid of "goo goo groopz," we'd
have it made.

AOHell has for years yielded to desires of right wing extremists, who
view Usenet as an "evil empire." Note how ****ed off right wing
trolls get when the other side kicks them in the teeth with facts.
Usenet's OK with them...as long as no one talks back to them. You'll
also note AOHell's unevenly and selectively enforced TOS policies have
not won them any fans of Internet users, either. With their
membership sinking at the rate of about 40K members per month, the
future doesn't look good for AOHell at all, and I suspect Time/Warner
is indeed positioning to "spin them off"...which, translated from
corporate-assholespeak, means "kill them off." This boneheaded Usenet
move will just accellerate the exodus and hasten AOHell's demise.

dB