4 ms·

Well, if you prefer, let's say "an alternative that was obviously going to win on the market". PS As a consumer I find it very hard to say that use-time paymen

• bigbugbag 9y ago
  It was not obvious that internet was going to win the market, there were barely any home computers in France vs a few millions minitel, there were pretty much no commercial ISP but local non profit ISPs and the national phone operator was raking in huge profit from the minitel and had no incentive to upgrade its inadequate infrastructure.
• user5994461 9y ago
  You seem to assume that the internet is flat fee, that is historically not the case. The internet was pay by the hour or pay by the kB for a very long time. The flat free subscriptions only emerged around the 00's.
  • danmaz74 9y ago
    My first internet connection was through a 28.8k modem, I know very well that it wasn't flat at the time, and that's exactly why I said that "pay per minute of use" is terrible for consumers compared to today's situation, while the OP said: "...as it had some aspects which were (and still are) significant downgrades. Monetisation is a big one, Minitel had use-time payment very early on"
    • vertex-four 9y ago
      I'd say the Internet still doesn't have a very good monetisation system. Card payment is several times too much effort to use, takes a good couple of minutes, and isn't reasonable for a one-off service. PayPal and similar services are a mess, and not much better. The point wasn't that use-time is good, it's that there was monetisation integrated into the design of the system, and it was easy for the customer to use.