Moving on from UseNet to the death of Gopher, comparing this article:
"Where Have all the Gophers Gone? Why the Web beat Gopher in the Battle for Protocol Mind Share" https://ils.unc.edu/callee/gopherpaper.htm
...with an interview with Mark McCahill, lead Gopher dev:
https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/107471/oh328mmc.pdf
TL,DR:
Historian: This protocol failed due to complex technological and sociological problems
Lead Dev: "What killed the protocol off was when people stopped using Gopher clients specifically and started using Mosaic" 🤔