After 10 years I finally cancelled my usenet service

tornadog

Golden Member
Aug 6, 2003
1,222
0
76
Today I cancelled my usenet service after 10 long years. I was primarily using it to grab 0-day tv series episodes, international shows and old shows from the 80s and 90s. But lately with the DMCA crackdown, it has become hard to find anything useful. But now you can find everything between cable, hulu, amazon and netflix. Not only that DVR technology has come a long way that now you can set shows to record from phone/tablet and also watch them online using apps like dish anywhere.

So in the end, I figured I was paying money for something I don't even use. Looking at my stats the last time I grabbed something from usenet was in October 2013.
 

FleshLight

Diamond Member
Mar 18, 2004
6,883
0
71
Go with block plans - $35/terabyte from a US provider + $20 for 250 gb from a european backup server.
 

tornadog

Golden Member
Aug 6, 2003
1,222
0
76
Spending a few minutes doing a search is hard? Please log off the internet.

I can search, I had vip membership to the old newzbin and now oznzb, but content just gets deleted so quickly. Especially when I have access to 0-day private trackers where said content is omnipresent and seeded really fast, it does not make much sense.

I like the block idea. Do those not expire if not used?
 

BurnItDwn

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
26,277
1,784
126
Ehh, I got sick and tired of organizing pirated crap and dealing with constantly buying hard drives so Instead I simply gave up piracy, gave up usenet, and buy my games on steam, blurays & cds on amazon or watch stuff on netflix, prime, or hulu.

It's true that I no longer acquire 1500 new albums each month, but, I still have plenty of content to occupy significantly more time than what I have available.

This was a number of years ago.... It might cost me a bit more nowadays, but really not that much more and totally worth it for the time saved.
 

mikeford

Diamond Member
Jan 27, 2001
5,671
160
106
That is the point of blocks, no expiration, just so many GB's, then get another block.

I'm not much into video, which takes GB fast, more into music that is hard to find and/or out of print and usenet has been pretty good even now for that.

Hard core downloaders will use some kind of program that works from a RSS feed of new posts and grabs things automatically that are on some want list. I've heard that gets content before the take down percolates through usenet.

I have block plans from Astraweb and newsgroupsdirect, but I'm looking for another secondary server for either a small block of rarely use it, or maybe make it a primary when one of the current blocks gets low.
 

shabby

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,782
45
91
I can search, I had vip membership to the old newzbin and now oznzb, but content just gets deleted so quickly. Especially when I have access to 0-day private trackers where said content is omnipresent and seeded really fast, it does not make much sense.

I like the block idea. Do those not expire if not used?

The trick is to get a usenet server outside of the us.
 

Crono

Lifer
Aug 8, 2001
23,720
1,502
136
Do people who use usenet not know about IRC, let alone torrents, file hosting sites, private servers, etc?

Not that I pirate nowadays, I pay for all my content or use free services. Just always found it curious that people were willing to pay for bandwidth for usenet/newsgroups when IRC was just as easy/hard to navigate, has comparable speeds (depending on bots), and is often has the primary release channels for a lot of groups. Maybe in the early days it made sense, but even 10 years ago there were plenty of alternatives.
 
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Newbian

Lifer
Aug 24, 2008
24,777
881
126
I wonder how long until the thread gets locked as talking about pirating from the start is usually not a good way to keep a thread alive. :p
 

Ricochet

Diamond Member
Oct 31, 1999
6,390
19
81
Back in the days, mIRC was my main staple. In the end I decided it was more hassle than it was worth. So many content that I don't know what to do with.
 

cronos

Diamond Member
Nov 7, 2001
9,380
26
101
Do people who use usenet not know about IRC, let alone torrents, file hosting sites, private servers, etc?

Not that I pirate nowadays, I pay for all my content or use free services. Just always found it curious that people were willing to pay for bandwidth for usenet/newsgroups when IRC was just as easy/hard to navigate, has comparable speeds (depending on bots), and is often has the primary release channels for a lot of groups. Maybe in the early days it made sense, but even 10 years ago there were plenty of alternatives.

You're not lying, as it is clear that you have not been pirating for a while :D

There's now zero 'navigating' needed for usenet. You set it once and you forget about it.
 

John Connor

Lifer
Nov 30, 2012
22,757
617
121
TPB is where I go. I don't believe in paying for shit on the net! I don't own a DVR and I go to TPB to grab my missied show.

BTW- Can we talk about this? LOL!
 

kranky

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
21,019
156
106
My observation is it can be discussed in general terms but if people start posting "how-to" information or specific sites to use, thread gets locked. And there's already been some of that.
 

waggy

No Lifer
Dec 14, 2000
68,143
10
81
Do people who use usenet not know about IRC, let alone torrents, file hosting sites, private servers, etc?

Not that I pirate nowadays, I pay for all my content or use free services. Just always found it curious that people were willing to pay for bandwidth for usenet/newsgroups when IRC was just as easy/hard to navigate, has comparable speeds (depending on bots), and is often has the primary release channels for a lot of groups. Maybe in the early days it made sense, but even 10 years ago there were plenty of alternatives.

ROLF i would say you been out for to long. I used to hang out on IRC on a few channels. but that way is dead and has been for like years.

hmm maybe people should go back to irc..
 

_Rick_

Diamond Member
Apr 20, 2012
3,943
69
91
I find it morally reprehensible to make money off of other people's work, without their consent. Which is why premium and usenet accounts are right out.
It also massively reduces the incentive. Piracy is nice to try things out while not paying a thing, but once you start to pay, might as well save that money for the actual product.

Monthly plans are even worse - might as well sign up for some VOD and a music library. the price difference isn't that big. Sure, VOD still mostly sucks, but maybe they figure out how stuff works some time this decade...