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Cake day: August 18th, 2023

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  • Usenet is a decentralized network that works very much like the fediverse here. Anything uploaded to one server gets sent out to all the servers; that’s why you can log onto lemmy.world and see posts made on say lemm.ee. Likewise something posted to one usenet server gets sent out to all the others. And these servers are being operated by individual entities (again, much like lemmy). Whoever owns the server you’re downloading from is having to pay for everything it sends out. Which is why most of the free ones will let you access the text portions but not the file downloads.

    A VPN isn’t necessary. But you do need a special program to connect to usenet. It’s built into a lot of older email clients (thunderbird is a good option).

    There’s no one single usenet company for the same reason there’s no one single lemmy instance. (I’m sure someone has explained it better somewhere else in this post).
















  • I’ve always felt being on the fediverse was antithetical to Beehaw’s mission. It wants to bee a kind, safe place for disenfranchised users, but it feels like less of a tight knit community when it is federated.

    The best example I can think of is like a high-school club/group. Being on the fediverse is like your group claiming a table in a crowded lunch room. Yes you’ve got your group together where you can talk amongst yourselves, but everything you say can be heard by everyone else in the room and likewise their conversations are going to butt in whether you like it or not. An unfederated or semi-private forum is more like getting an unused classroom for your group to meet in. It’s still open for anyone to join as long as they don’t create trouble, but having your own room makes the conversation feel more personal/intimate and people are more likely to open up about personal stuff they wouldn’t want to yell out in the lunch room.

    Probably a poor analogy, and I may be misunderstanding their goal, but that’s my 2 cents.