I had a Minitel account in the 1980s. France Telecom rolled out Minitel in the US, although almost nobody noticed. Minitel had much of the functionality of the Web in a primitive form. There were online stores which accepted credit cards. Traffic maps of Paris. News and chat. Phone directories. Text porn. Social and dating sites. (One had to be able to write good poetry in French to get noticed.) Even paid sex chat ("tenderness service"). Most of the functionality of the Web was there, except images and video.
Minitel was a pay service; almost everything cost. The big surprise on the Web was that ads alone would pay for so much and that bandwidth would become so cheap.
Minitel was a pay service; almost everything cost. The big surprise on the Web was that ads alone would pay for so much and that bandwidth would become so cheap.