The minitel was centralized technically as in dumb terminals connecting to a smart server[1]. Everyone wanting to connect to your own hosted full service would

The minitel was centralized technically as in dumb terminals connecting to a smart server[1]. Everyone wanting to connect to your own hosted full service would have to connect to a central point: your own hosted full service. But there was one service, 3618 or service MIAMI, that allowed direct connection minitel to minitel but this was using a different network and stayed available 2 years after the minitel network was shut down. The economic model was definitely not what you said, there was a wide range of possibilities: fully free (3623), free with a time limitation (3611), paid for by the service provider (3613), paid for by the user with no money for the service provider (3614), paid by the word (3656 to send a telegram), paid by the user with money split with the service provider a.k.a. kiosk debuting in 1984 (3615), overcharged services (3617, 3628, 3629). Some had a fixed costs at connection. Ads were a thing minitel services, from a simple banner to a full page interstitial graphics that you had to wait a little while for it to load. Tracking also though much less elaborated and certainly not exploited the way it is today. Minitel was not given to all for free, it was offered for a limited time to people in exchange for opting out of receiving the free local white pages phone book, this economic model of giving away the terminal and recouping the costs through services prices was much criticized but has now become common (printer, smartphones, ...). Then you could either rent or buy a minitel, usually a more evolved version. The use of the minitel was mostly the phone directory, buying train tickets and erotic messaging. The kiosk where the service provider get its share of the money made the minitel successful. Among services were 3615 internet to connect to the internet with your minitel which paid for altern.org and ultimately lead to gandi.fr, also notable is Xavier Niels who debuted his career to becoming the billionaire behind free.fr and proxad.net as a high schooler with a minitel erotic messaging service. To get deeper see this INA article[2]. [1]: This is the basis of the famous talk "internet or minitel 2.0" from 10 years ago about the evolution of internet https://www.fdn.fr/actions/confs/internet-libre-ou-minitel-2-0/ https://www.fdn.fr/actions/confs/internet-libre-ou-minitel-2... [2]: http://www.inaglobal.fr/telecoms/article/du-minitel-linterne http://www.inaglobal.fr/telecoms/article/du-minitel-linterne