Usenet was/is decentralized. Yes, some things that are technically decentralized still end up centralized. But that's not what was going on or why Google bought Deja News, I don't think. They, at that time, ostensibly, wanted the historical usenet archive, and to make it searchable. Most people using usenet at the time didn't actually have access to a complete archive, just however much their usenet provider had chosen to keep on-hand from whenever that provider started distributing usenet.
I don't think the majority of usenet users were using it via Deja News provider. They could all keep accessing it however they were used to, Google's acquisition didn't change that, Gogle had no way to "remove what made usenet great" (i'm not sure what you are thinking of here being removed) -- if people switched from usenet to google groups (and I'm sure some did), it was because google groups had something they wanted that usenet didn't, google had absolutely no way to force anyone to do that, usenet kept existing the same as it ever did -- on a long-term trend of increasing irrelevancy.
Usenet was/is decentralized. Yes, some things that are technically decentralized still end up centralized. But that's not what was going on or why Google bought Deja News, I don't think. They, at that time, ostensibly, wanted the historical usenet archive, and to make it searchable. Most people using usenet at the time didn't actually have access to a complete archive, just however much their usenet provider had chosen to keep on-hand from whenever that provider started distributing usenet.
I don't think the majority of usenet users were using it via Deja News provider. They could all keep accessing it however they were used to, Google's acquisition didn't change that, Gogle had no way to "remove what made usenet great" (i'm not sure what you are thinking of here being removed) -- if people switched from usenet to google groups (and I'm sure some did), it was because google groups had something they wanted that usenet didn't, google had absolutely no way to force anyone to do that, usenet kept existing the same as it ever did -- on a long-term trend of increasing irrelevancy.