Usenet was much more than a BBS from the past, in the sense that nearly everyone subscribed/participated in it. It was NNTP way back when, but tens of thousands of computers would sync all those messages at every node. By the late 80's you even had binaries.

But then it all changed, and those nodes today are just corporate server farms and have really nothing to do with what Usenet was except name only. So yes, people pay to use a corporate node.