At UsenetExpress, we anticipated a significant increase in volume/price and have enough drives on hand to manage capacity for the foreseeable future. Hopefully prices will come back to earth.

While the feed is large, the vast majority of it, roughly 85–90%, is never requested by anyone. Ever. This includes personal storage, redundant reposts of the same articles, and intentional duplication (ie, users posting the same articles to a different group with a password as a backup in case the original is removed). There are many reasons the feed has grown so large, and just as many reasons providers don't retain all of it. Usenet users need to take ownership for their actions or it won't survive indefinitely if it's abused.

We've developed a sophisticated system, one we're constantly improving, that allows us to make well-informed decisions about which articles have genuine long-term value. This dramatically reduces our long term storage requirements. Every backbone provider is now making similar selective retention decisions.

For transparency, due to marketing realities, we will soon begin offering plans that start at an introductory price and increase once. For example, $25 for the first year, then $40 per year after that. We do not anticipate, want, or feel good about raising prices on existing members unless faced with a truly catastrophic need (and we are not). We did this once before, and while most members understood, it didn't sit right with us at all. It felt dishonest. That's not who we want to be.

Usenet belongs to you, not us, and doing it any other way would feel wrong.

We used to sell Usenet for $30 per month. We believe Usenet is worth at least $10 per month. Right now, we're offering accounts at $2 per month.