Really the most annoying conclusion possible in the article: "The free market wins again."<p>The free market gets to win after sufficient government handouts gets something up and running. Then private businesses can swoop in and take the networks (or in this case, the concept) and claim that they won.<p>If your mother gives you a lollipop, you didn't win an epic battle for the lollipop. Just saying...
<i>This was perhaps the Minitel's greatest failure as well - because it was state run... The free market wins again.</i><p>If the Minitel launched in the eighties, how could have this article been written in the fifties?<p>Seriously, are Americans still fighting commies? What is this sick obsession with "the gobment"? Today we know we need both the private market and the government to build an economy that is both prosperous and beneficial to the people. Could you cut this fifties crap already?<p>And this wasn't a case of the "free market" winning again. This was just America winning again. And given that the US median income is steadily dropping while in France it's steadily rising, I don't know if there's much to be proud of.
<i>In the early 1990s US West (previously Qwest now CenturyLink) launched a Minitel service in the Minneapolis and Omaha markets called "CommunityLink"... The service was fairly short-lived as competing offerings from providers like AOL, Prodigy, and CompuServe provided more services targeted at American users for a lower price. Many of US West's Minitel offerings were charged à la carte or hourly while competitors offered monthly all-inclusive pricing.</i><p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel#Minitel_in_other_countries" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel#Minitel_in_other_countr...</a>
This article does not mention that the Minitel was a rip-off. All services were extremely expensive (3617 being the most expensive, at around 1€/minute). It was also investing on people's credulity at the time: for example, expensive Minitel services avdertised in video games magasines targeting teenagers.<p>And for information, Free is not the largest ISP in France, Orange is.<p><a href="http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_%28soci%C3%A9t%C3%A9%29" rel="nofollow">http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_%28soci%C3%A9t%C3%A9%29</a>
Makes me proud to be French.<p>Xavier Niel is launching a tuition-free developer school:<p><a href="http://www.rudebaguette.com/2013/03/26/rumor-confirmed-xavier-niel-launches-tuition-free-developer-school-baptised-42/" rel="nofollow">http://www.rudebaguette.com/2013/03/26/rumor-confirmed-xavie...</a><p>The FT also recently had lunch with him:<p><a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/22167134-b24a-11e2-8540-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2iOwwym00" rel="nofollow">http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/22167134-b24a-11e2-8540-00144feabd...</a>
<p><pre><code> Online dating has just started going mainstream in America.
The Minitel might explain a cultural difference or two between
the French and the rest of the world...
</code></pre>
Ironically, in my experience online dating carries much less stigma in the US than in France. I'm not sure I agree with the implications of the article on the impact of the Minitel in France as a whole either, but then I'm too young to have witnessed it firsthand (I always saw one sitting in a corner at my grand parents', but that's about it).
I grew up in France, and was completely surprised when I learned that Minitel was something only in France.
This was really the first internet, and the Minitel was really present EVERYWHERE.
My parents had one, my friends' parents had one, we had a few at my elementary school.<p>I still remember the billboards, 3615 ULLA, funny memories. We still use the "3615" number as jokes with friends.
It was hugely expensive for the consumer: 3615 was a phone number, and it was surtaxed at 0,34€/min if I remember well, even as early as 1995. No wonder the market was a billion dollars, it was a rip off.<p>Internet killed the milking cow, and everyone wondered how Yellow Pages could survive when they couldn't charge per minute anymore...
As an owner of a collection of old Minitel-compatible 8-bit machines (my 'nicest': an Oric Telestrat), I yearn for a return of Minitel. I imagine actually that the "Internet 2.0" movement would do well to make it feasible for anyone to create a node, and participate in, a MiniTel-like local area transmission network, with cheap .. like ultra-cheap .. parts and technologies.<p>If I collect two months of electronic trash from the local garbage-collector, I'm fairly sure I could reconstruct a miniTel'ish network, or 10, in short order.<p>Perhaps I should stop thinking about it on HN and just go do it, but see .. this is just another reason why the French are great!
Oh yes, I remember reading about the Minitel many years ago. Thanks for bringing it back to attention.<p>The fall of these old technologies leave behind a somewhat somber mood in me. Kind of like the decline of UUCP.
This is amazing and thank you for sharing; As API said in another comment. I wish i was alive during those days and also alive today. I hope I'll be saying it about our future, but there is something about the nostalgia, I just fixed desperately needed box with ribbons and remembered how much I loved it when i was younger..(fixed it btw.)<p>[edit] There was zero credit to government persons, which I kinda feel lacking.. Someone was thinking here.
As a child, I spent hours on the minitel, (disconnected - I never got the permission to use it online as it was very expensive) just to type ascii art...
We had Viditel in the Netherlands which was like this (modelled after it I guess). I used it very briefly in the early 80s; after that I discovered ways to use Pascal and assembler to write BBS software and opened my first BBS on my MSX computer. That gave so much freedom that I never considered Viditel again.
I think "Bildschirmtext" was a similar service that launched around the same time in Germany and also foreshadowed a lot of what the internet is now. Online shopping, forums, real time messaging, online dating, etc.
The UK had a similar thing run by the BBC called Ceefax
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceefax" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceefax</a>