Hi there scuzzb494,
I must say I disagree with you concerning PD houses and the need for demo groups to have a "publisher".
As a former mega-swapper in the 90's with over 150 contacts internationally, I can safely say that groups had no problems getting their stuff out to people inside or outside The Scene. We swappers lived for spreading demos, intros, disk mags and so forth - it was a lifestyle.
I mailtraded floppy-disks with hot/new stuff with people from Australia, Poland, Italy, Spain, UK and so forth. I used to receive apx. 5 parcels with stuff per day. If I got a new demo, I'd send it out through the network and those I shipped it to spread it further to hundreds of others. It was a great system and very fun. Got a lot of friends all over the world because of this.
The stuff then got spread to people not swapping themselves, like friends, neighbours, at school and so forth. The reach was in the thousands and thousands. A very good demo could be found in most users disk-boxes.
You also had BBS's that hosted demos. One job on The Scene was to be a modem-trader. These guys uploaded new demos to BBS's all around the world. They then got downloaded and spread yet again.
PD-houses could haved served as an entry point for some to get a new demo, but I can safely say that this stuff did not need PD-houses to be spread.
We also had copy-/demoparties were people met and exchanged stuff.
Britelite is very famous on The Scene btw and has been active for years. He knows this stuff in-depth.
I also, if I remember correctly, recall Kefrens - famous Danish group - having a fight with a PD House for charging money for one of their demos.. am I correct here?
And.. The Scene is still going strong. There has been many Amiga releases the last year, a lot of nice stuff.
And groups you are talking about from back in the days, some of them are still alive and kicking!
I'm still in a couple of groups, but not very active these days.
Have a look here at Pouet.net for Amiga releases 2016 and 2015:
http://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php
