I was unable to reach Spartacus online yesterday from Europe, too. So, the site seems to be really down at this time.
The 'old', printed, relatively expensive and somewhat massive Spartacus used to list places like parks, train stations and college libraries tearooms, etc., too. Originally, were trying to provide the best and most accurate and complete information to their public. And, indeed, they were also trying to be as global as possible. Hence, they so heavily depended on the informal network of volunteers and correspondents to provide them with accurate and timely information.
The onset of massive, almost universal use of the www. spelled the end of Spartacus/Damron as being the only trusted and available sources of relevant cruising venue information.
Soon enough, local LGBT sites started providing specific and relevant, at times even frequently updated local information on the cruising venues in their respective towns and regions.
Spartacus lived well off the increasing revenue generated by the ads various commercial gay venues were placing with them. The non-commercial cruising information was naturally receiving less and less prominence. Its accuracy ceased to be anyone's concern.
I went through a printed edition of Spartacus few years ago. It really felt like holding a fossil in your hands. Information provided was useful, i.e., legal standing, age of consent, etc.. The rest of it was nothing else but an expensive Gay Yellow Pages of the world. Not that anything should be wrong with the world having its Gay Yellow Pages...
Now, most of us know Google.com, too. If anyone is traveling to Anycity, Anystate, and wants to know where to go cruising for sex, or drinking in a gay bar or hooking up in the baths, Google will give you as accurate information as you can hope to get. I doubt that too many people will go to Spartacus online (or offline) and pay a fee (or not) to get that information. Why would a number of people needed for a commercial operation to be viable want to do so?
I imagine that the modest advertising revenue may still keep Spartacus and its listings alive for some time to come. Yet, new, far more efficient and far less expensive technologies invariably replace the outdated ones. Hence, the outcome is both known and inevitable.
KD
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