Explain Like I'm 5 (ELI5)

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ELI5: What exactly is Usenet and why do I need a provider? (self.eli5)

submitted 6 days ago by Allero to c/eli5@lemmy.world

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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.

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[–] HappyTimeHarry@lemm.ee 16 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Usenet is many things, like email is smtp, or websites use http, usenet is nntp. I can explain mostly from a piracy aspect.

Some providers run servers which host archives that go back years, some host "binaries" (which can be stuff like software or movies) while others like google will only do text based content. The reason you need a provider is because storing decades worth of binary files takes a lot of space and that costs money.

The reason you want long retention is so you can find all the episodes of that show you want to watch that aired 10 years ago, or a movie that was last uploaded in 2015

Then there are usenet indexers like drunkenslug and nzb.su, they are similar to torrent trackers in that they have files with the information needed to locate a given binary file, most content is split into segments of 10s or 100s of mb

[–] Allero 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

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?

[–] HappyTimeHarry@lemm.ee 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Allero 1 points 5 days ago

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".