bloop

Hmm. In the old days, pretty much every ISP ran a Usenet server. The cost was covered as part of your internet connection bill, it was just part of the service.

I could see a potential future where running a Lemmy instance became table-stakes for ISPs, like Usenet used to be.

It's some kind of potting material - it's hard to say from the photo but it looks like it might be soft? It's probably been put on to protect the board against moisture and pollution. You may be able to scrape it off with a scalpel blade or similar if you need to. Depending on what the material is it may melt away under soldering heat or it might burn, or it may be quite heat proof