Hacker News Reader

It couldn't be monetized, true, but the way I remember it netnews was still supported in the US until it became too politically hot to handle. See this ancient article for ex, https://mashable.com/2008/06/10/child-porn-usenet/

I ran an ISP in Oklahoma. I eventually moved our usenet to a hosted news server because the DA at the time was seizing hardware in the state.

IRC, like social networks, is slways tough to rank due to lack of structured data. I don't believe Usenet suffered this proform.

Re: Facebook I agree it has hurt, nay scourged, the Web—that's undeniable—but that has also created room to innovate how we share content on the surface web.

I enjoyed YouTube until I tested the effectiveness of ContentID and was banned under their ToS. May they burn in hell under the new EU regs.

Actually the new regs ensure that only companies with the resources of YouTube will survive.

> but since the users couldn’t be monitized and sold for profit it fell prey to market forces

but isn't being monetized and sold for profit also market forces?