Yes, very centralized, but in early 80's with telco companies having pretty much a monopoly on their own respective market, and practically no standard hardware

Yes, very centralized, but in early 80's with telco companies having pretty much a monopoly on their own respective market, and practically no standard hardware, the Minitel was the best that could be done to get a large chunk of the population to go online, make safely online transactions, exchange messages, before the Web. Today, 35 years after with what we know, with a deregulated telco environment, with internet protocols and corresponding hardware, sure, the Minitel is not ideal for net neutrality. I think it was still a good step, and looking back, not a too shabby execution either. Now 35 years later, the market brought Android smartphone, which are the new commodity for people to go online.