I wonder if original question is just troll. :)

It is getting difficult to get a usenet service from any ISP for free (at least here in Finland). Largest ISP shut down their last commercially operated usenet server in 2009 (other ISPs did same earlier).

Afaik now only some universities here are offering free usenet server access for general public if DNS resolves to .fi. And available groups are mostly just finnish sfnet groups. Circle has kinda closed - universities started usenet and universities will probably be the final institutions to offer it. I wonder if IRC will eventually have the same fate as usenet.

I think it was just two weeks ago when I went to see how active those old favourite groups are. As two or threee years before, groups were mostly empty or polluted by spam. No user base, no content.