Usenet started out as a forum-like system, with individual messages grouped into discussion threads (the protocol worked kind of like email, with messages indicating which other message they replied to, so that client software could build a tree for each group). That side of it was eventually killed off by lack of good moderation options or support for embedded media.
People were using this service to put up money to encourage programmers working on open-source software to fix specific bugs that were especially bothering them. For instance, if text in software X didn't scale properly and that was a problem for you, you could use this service to offer $100 to programmers working on X to fix the text scaling. Once they got it fixed, they collected the money.
The service went bankrupt.
When it went bankrupt, some programmers didn't get their promised payment for bugs they had fixed.
The money didn't get returned to the people who had paid for the bug to be fixed, either.
So now both programmers and users have lost money because of this service, and everyone's ticked off.
This has always been the case with the right wing. They believe that wealthy white straight cismen are the perfect expression of humanity, and everyone who deviates from that mold should be punished. Their "freedom" exists only for people they regard as the top of the hierarchy and basically consists of the freedom to be greedy assholes.
I wish people would get this through their heads and stop electing them. It doesn't matter what the talking head du jour does or doesn't say—the Conservative Party of Canada's track record is clear all the way back to the days when it was the Reform Party, and even the most apparently innocuous member of it is complicit.
The Liberals are quietly corrupt in spots and sometimes stunningly inept, but the Conservatives are nasty. It's past time for the NDP to have their chance to screw up the country instead.
Well, not anything (if you actually think that's possible, then I have a challenge for you: make a functioning gun out of cheese), but an average hardware store should have everything you need to produce something capable of firing a shot.