I agree that Giganews is losing its focus. Worse yet, instead of developing unique products, they're bundling services that are already widely available in the open market.
Instead of releasing a standard software newsreader (there's probably already enough these days) why couldn't they instead develop a quality online web-access reader/downloader? IMHO that's what every NSP could use. It's too bad the the only existing ones such as NewsGuy only have low retention. There's been many times that I've been visiting someone who wants to download a certain movie but absolutely does not want to install software. (and I can't blame anyone for not wanting to risk screwing up their computer with potentially buggy/crashy/spyware-infested software that won't cleanly uninstall, as I've been there myself) And with an increasing number of people accessing the web using low-power netbooks or iPhones or iPads, the idea of installing a Java Newsreader is just not a feasible option.
Or how about the idea of Giganews developing just a simple online reader for Giganews' 7-year archive of text newsgroups? I hate using Google Groups, which is the only available option for searching old usenet discussions. Since they'd obviously rather bundle more services than cut prices, there are many unique avenues that Giganews could branch into. (How about an online newsreader/grabber for celphones?) But no, it seems Giganews prefers to offer a duplicate of something that you can already get on your own from a dozen different places.
But at least Giganews looks like the first usenet provider offering its own newsreader that doesn't try to stick people for an entire year of service.