I wasn’t even noticed, but my ISP put on its web site it was offering no more news server because “it was doomed” and a thing of the past. Effective September 9 th 2008. So no more malwares, pornography, child pornography and every bad thing you can think of. I think the cons were so many the pros are tiny with Newsgroups. The Mormons are going to be happy. There is still the possibility to subscribe to a paying fee usenet but who is going to use that. Newsgroups were popular in the nineties because they were FREE, I think.
I guess only the microsoft USENET is still alive :o
Usenet isn’t dead by a long shot, what you are describing is your ISP not offering connection to it, it will still be there.
This google search only returns 3.67 million hits, http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=free+newsgroup+service
I don’t use them very often and haven’t bothered subscribing since I got my new system, byt at the last count there were over 65,000 different Usenet groups, hardly dead.