I assumed the name was coined before the first bubble, around 1998, by a French friend of mine. In English we rather tend to say "blah blah" than "blabla". The

I assumed the name was coined before the first bubble, around 1998, by a French friend of mine. In English we rather tend to say "blah blah" than "blabla". The idea didn't work because there wasn't enough connected people at the time. He later sold it and it is very famous now, at least in France. It's probably especially popular in France because our train service has random failures* and is about 2-3x more expensive. I wonder about penetration rates in counties with a reliable train service. *the last ever time I took the train was a "surprise strike" of the only on-board agent, which prevented the train from leaving. The joke is, I think they told him he was on strike when he woke up.