Quick question for those who remember the time. What was BBSing like back in the Minitel days? In the States and other places without an equivalent system, BBS

Quick question for those who remember the time. What was BBSing like back in the Minitel days? In the States and other places without an equivalent system, BBSs were pretty much the only way to connect in any kind of "on-line", but as soon as the Web became widespread BBSs died a very quick death. I would suppose that Minitel would have prevented an equivalent BBS scene from developing in France, but I have no idea. I know there were reasonably big scenes in other parts of Europe though.