Subj : Re: FidoWeb
To   : Enric Lleal Serra
From : Ward Dossche
Date : Sun Aug 02 2026 11:52 am

Enric,
 
EL> But with your question, I think that I have to assume there's no
EL> backbone, isn't it, Ward?
 
Correct.
 
Backbones are from the pre-internet era when due to cost reductions on 
international, and even local, traffic bundeling everything made economic 
sense. Those days are gone for over 2 decades now.
 
Some people may still call their system "backbone" but now that everybody can 
link everywhere it's just a word. Just as "echolist", or "filegate". Someone 
may run these services, or may not ... but Fidonet can live without them.
 
The word 'backbone' for me carries a very negative connotation when the North 
American star-systems were not ashamed to use their bundling power into a tool 
to force foreign regions, and even entire zones, into a specific pattern.
 
It culminated, and collapsed, with the Fidonews-putch which coincided with a 
growth in number of internet-accessible nodes. Nothing bad from the dead, and 
everybody mellowed in the meantime, but Bob Seaborn and Janis Kracht played a 
pretty dirty role in those days.
 
Yes, there are no backbones anymore and at the same time we are all together 
one single big backbone. No-one has power ...
 
 \%/@rd

--- DB4 - 20230201
 * Origin: Many Glacier - Preserve / Protect / Conserve (2:292/854)

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