Anyone with Minitels or compatible modems could run their own service, just like a BBS. There were quite a lot of these services, that anyone could connect to,

Anyone with Minitels or compatible modems could run their own service, just like a BBS. There were quite a lot of these services, that anyone could connect to, for just the cost of a local communication. They had interesting features such as file transfers, real-time multiparty chatrooms, the ability to define macros (custom sequences of control code to display fancy images and animations in discussion boards and chatrooms), and more. At that time, local phone calls were not free, but they were cheap compared to longer-distance (but still in France) calls. So, these services were federating very local communities. Members frequently met in person. Think about Facebook just for your city, where most people in your friend list are people you actually know in person and often hang out with. That was pretty awesome. Internet being global is amazing, but these very local communities were also amazing in a different way.