> Before Reddit and web forums there was Usenet.

Also, what killed Usenet was mainly the byzantine process of creating newsgroups (i.e., artificial barriers to entry), and how those who found themselves in charge of popular newsgroups tendes to be heavy-handed in how they viewed the role of censorship as beneficial (i.e., more artificial barriers to entry).

Now comes web3 and the only technical benefit that's being pushed is it's ability to impose artificial barriers to entry at a deeper architectural level.

> Also, what killed Usenet was mainly the byzantine process of creating newsgroups (i.e., artificial barriers to entry)

I don't buy it. The web forums that largely replaced Usenet also had significant barriers to entry; although you could get a PHPBB hosting account pretty easily you would then have to drive traffic to your site; people couldn't just add your site to their feedlist and see new posts automatically without "going there". And you had a much freer hand with moderation.

I think web forums won largely because they didn't require any client software - the barriers to entry for new users were non-existent. Maybe the moderation was more effective as well; I know some usenet groups had major issues with spam but that wasn't universal.

> I don't buy it. The web forums that largely replaced Usenet also had significant barriers to entry;

Not really. The fact alone that anyone could create their own web forum is already leaps and bounds ahead of what Usenet users could ever do.

Those interested in setting up their web forum had to endure the technical and financial hurdles of getting it and running just to sidestep the artificial and byzantine barriers to entry required by Usenet's self-described guardians.

Afterwards, services like Reddit and the like further simplified the process of creating a web forum, and thus virtually the whole world jumped onboard.

> "(...) although you could get a PHPBB hosting account pretty easily you would then have to drive traffic to your site*

There is nothing simple about setting up a full blown web server. Let's not fool ourselves.

This is something that some software engineers never done nor have experience in what is required to get it up and running from start to finish. This is certainly not something at the reach of any person with a hobby or even personal interest.

> There is nothing simple about setting up a full blown web server. Let's not fool ourselves.

But you didn’t have to. Shared web hosting sites had scripts to do all that for you more than 20 years ago.

Spam, and the inability to address it adequately, was a big part of what killed USENET. See Russ Allbery's legendary rant: https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/writing/rant.html

> Spam, and the inability to address it adequately, was a big part of what killed USENET.

Spam was a nuisance, but not a relevant or even significant one at a technical standpoint. Client-side spam filters and the flimsiest of moderation solved that problem.

Claiming that spam killed Usenet makes as much sense as claiming that spam killed email.

Spam accelerated the centralisation of email, certainly. Setting up your own server incurs problems in both directions, both deliverability and spam blocking.

What are you talking about? Email is definitely not centralized. At all.