However, the services provided by an ISP may take longer to set up and more time to learn to use than those tools provided by a commercial online service. One major draw the online services have is their own private forums. Having access to the Internet and using information sources such as UseNet News allow you access to thousands of discussion forums devoted to a vast array of topics. However, many of the online services have their own internal discussion groups. These internal forums may resemble the news groups on the Internet in structure.
Internal forums are only available to members of that service.
A forum on CompuServe can only be accessed by other CompuServe members. A user of an ISP cannot access a CompuServe forum, nor can either access an America Online forum. Users of all three providers can access many Internet UseNet news groups, however. In an Internet forum, the people who read and contribute could be anyone in the world. In one of the closed providers' internal discussion groups, your audience will be limited to that systems' members.