Having been in the IT industry since 1992 - I did use a free Usenet server, probably provided by my ISP.
Used the "comp.*" heirarchy mostly, discussing technical topics and answering questions - in 1996, a publisher (Wiley!) sent me a box of books - apparently I had helped one of their authors and they wanted to thank me.
On-one-hand, I would like to try it again - OTOH, I think spam and/or bots would overwhelm it to the point of uselessness.
Used the "comp.*" heirarchy mostly, discussing technical topics and answering questions - in 1996, a publisher (Wiley!) sent me a box of books - apparently I had helped one of their authors and they wanted to thank me.
On-one-hand, I would like to try it again - OTOH, I think spam and/or bots would overwhelm it to the point of uselessness.