Just trying to understand all the statements made thus far.

As a company, Cox has come to the conclusion that Usenet/Netnews access is no longer going to be provided for by them. I see this as a general business decision, whether they see it as a cost savings on internal bandwidth usage, or power/storage/maintenance usage. That is entirely up to them. You may feel differently, and you are entitled to your own opinion. If you don’t like it, there are always other options. If there aren’t any options, then make an option (Capitalism in action). They have not stated that I can find (haven't found yet, not saying doesn't exist) that due to lack of customers not knowing that it is there, we will be discontinuing this service. Cox is not the first and most likely will not be the last ISP to turn off their Usenet servers. They have been better than most in the case that they are giving everyone a warning of what is going to happen. Not just throwing the switch and dealing with the aftermath.

Another note to a few posters above is that, while yes "You" and others do not use Usenet for illegal purposes, there are those that do. So using a reference earlier that 99% of current users do not use it puts you in the 1% category. Of the 1% that do actually use it, i would be fair to say that 1 in 5 actually use it for what it was designed. The other 4 use it for porn/software/movies and the like. So in essence you are arguing that they are bad people because they are not keeping a service alive for the .2% of their user base that are using it legitimately.

They have offered 1 alternate provider, but you are not limited to that provider. If those concerned believe that it is not too hard to host a Usenet server, I ask you to create one and host it. Not getting into the argument that walk in their shoes and see what it is like. But legitimately run your own server, if something is of that much importance to you, you will be able to find a way to keep it.

Breakdown: They have decided to allocate their resources elsewhere, have given people options to look elsewhere for other ways of Usenet access. If you don’t like their decision, do your own thing, nothing prevents you from doing it.

My 2 cents.