[u801e]

> By 2000, though, Usenet was essentially dead for actual communication use

The groups I frequented were active through 2013 or so (and I didn't start posting on usenet until 1999).

[geoelectric]

I'm impressed, TBH. The bottom really dropped out of Usenet when it started getting used as a file transfer mechanism, and most conversational traffic moved away from it.