Usenet Provider Reviews

Binary Retention
Retention is the means by which a news server stores its messages, both binary and non-binary, over the coming months/years, so that is available to you TODAY before being deleted from the servers. Therefore if a usenet provider says its retention is 2 years, then you will see posts two years old that you can safely assume to be still valid for you to download. This includes not only text posts (i.e. non-binary) but also mp3s, isos (games, applications, etc), x264 (high definition blu-rays), etc.

In the 1980s & 1990s, retention did not last very long, and newsgroup tools were very archaic. Often, groups that were famous for popular posts did not hold data for very long, and was subject to constant abuse by spammers which would cause the data to fly off of the server (along with anyone else's relevant posts). Today though, newservers will have retention that lasts for years, giving the usenet fan ample room to download files many years old.
Lucky for us, most private news providers compete fiercely with each other for your hard earned dollars, and as a result we can enjoy low prices with premium content.