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I think the better analogy would be the origins of the coffee house. https://ineedcoffee.com/the-coffee-house-a-history/ https://ineedcoffee.com/the-coffee-hou

I think the better analogy would be the origins of the coffee house. https://ineedcoffee.com/the-coffee-house-a-history/ https://ineedcoffee.com/the-coffee-house-a-history/ They rapidly became a place where people from all walks of life could, and did, come for lively discussion. And their rapid increase in popularity caused them to collapse from their own success. Early access to the internet was, by definition, limited to people who were on academic or military networks. But by the time BBS culture came about, it was the thrill of finding like-minded folks from wherever they might be- it was not a culture based on exclusion per se, like what you would find at a country club.

wyattpeak 8y ago
I chose country club specifically because I think there has always been a strong fiction of meritocracy in IT and I was very specifically highlighting the exclusatory nature of the culture. "All walks of life" is a polite fiction. The September in "Eternal September", after all, refers to university intake. "Wherever they might be" is a bit of a cop-out, because they weren't really "wherever", they were in other universities. It wasn't a coffee shop, it was a strongly walled garden which only very specific groups of people could reasonably access.
- Baeocystin 8y ago
  Anyone with access to a modem could, and did, participate in the BBS era. I had great conversations with people from all walks of life. Not fiction.
  - wyattpeak 8y ago
    "Anyone with a modem" is not a trivial bar. It's like saying "anyone with a CNC setup has been able to 3D print for decades". Yes, but it was the introduction of easy-to-use 3D printers which actually, rather than theoretically, democratised it. As it was with AOL and Usenet.
    - Baeocystin 8y ago
      Modems have been around for a very long time. By the time the mid-80's rolled around, a 300-baud cuff modem was well within the range of a young kid who had some paper-route money, because that's what I did. And my family was not wealthy at all. [edit]- I found an article from 1987 talking about how amazingly fast (and cheap) the new 2400 baud modems were. I had to chuckle, as I still remember going from 300 (slow enough that your reading speed was baud-limited) to 1200 (wow! I can barely keep up!) 2400 and above was a speed that seemed almost decadent. http://www.technofileonline.com/texts/2400modem88.html http://www.technofileonline.com/texts/2400modem88.html
      - bewo001 8y ago
        Not all parents were OK with blocking the phone line with a modem when they have just watched a movie were a curious teenager almost started WW III by accidentally hacking into the Pentagon (speaking from experience).
        Baeocystin 8y ago
        I thought it was so cool to have an acoustic-coupler modem like Broderick's character in War Games. Never did find the number to connect to the WOPR, though.
      - cfmcdonald 8y ago
        In the mid-80s, only maybe 10% of U.S. households had a computer, much less a modem. You also paid by-the-minute long-distance charges for calling anyone (or any computer) outside your town.
        Baeocystin 8y ago
        That's why local BBSes that were part of a relay network were so popular. Communicating with folks far outside one's home range 'for free' was exciting!
      - DanBC 8y ago
  - ajmurmann 8y ago
    I think what changed is less access to consumption, but access to making your own. When you wanted to host your own community, you need a domain and a server and some technical skills. That was a much higher bar than you need to create a Facebook community. That's ultimately what made the internet boring. Every special interest group used to have their own hand created websites that were a labor of passion. Now it's just another Facebook group or sub Reddit.
    - Baeocystin 8y ago
      That's part of it, no doubt. I got started in the BBS era, pre-WWW, and the folks that set up their own bulletin boards were all interesting in their own right. Each board, even if it used the same base software as another, had its own distinct personality and flavor.
  - code_duck 8y ago
    Access to a modem, a piece of hardware that cost hundreds of dollars, and obviously also required a machine that cost thousands. Unless you attended a university, which was also more exclusive in the early 80s than now.
    - Baeocystin 8y ago
      Things changed very rapidly back then. By the time I was old enough to be part of BBS culture (mid-80's), a Commodore was a couple hundred dollars, and a modem not even $100. Penetration by % of population was low compared to today's ubiquity, but competent machines were readily affordable to the majority of Americans.
      - code_duck 8y ago
        That’s true. It’s amazing how the Commodore 64 went from, adjusted, over $1500 to about 350 in just a couple years.
User23 8y ago
"Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded"

wyattpeak 8y ago

I chose country club specifically because I think there has always been a strong fiction of meritocracy in IT and I was very specifically highlighting the exclusatory nature of the culture. "All walks of life" is a polite fiction. The September in "Eternal September", after all, refers to university intake. "Wherever they might be" is a bit of a cop-out, because they weren't really "wherever", they were in other universities. It wasn't a coffee shop, it was a strongly walled garden which only very specific groups of people could reasonably access.

Baeocystin 8y ago
Anyone with access to a modem could, and did, participate in the BBS era. I had great conversations with people from all walks of life. Not fiction.
- wyattpeak 8y ago
  "Anyone with a modem" is not a trivial bar. It's like saying "anyone with a CNC setup has been able to 3D print for decades". Yes, but it was the introduction of easy-to-use 3D printers which actually, rather than theoretically, democratised it. As it was with AOL and Usenet.
  - Baeocystin 8y ago
    Modems have been around for a very long time. By the time the mid-80's rolled around, a 300-baud cuff modem was well within the range of a young kid who had some paper-route money, because that's what I did. And my family was not wealthy at all. [edit]- I found an article from 1987 talking about how amazingly fast (and cheap) the new 2400 baud modems were. I had to chuckle, as I still remember going from 300 (slow enough that your reading speed was baud-limited) to 1200 (wow! I can barely keep up!) 2400 and above was a speed that seemed almost decadent. http://www.technofileonline.com/texts/2400modem88.html http://www.technofileonline.com/texts/2400modem88.html
    - bewo001 8y ago
      Not all parents were OK with blocking the phone line with a modem when they have just watched a movie were a curious teenager almost started WW III by accidentally hacking into the Pentagon (speaking from experience).
      - Baeocystin 8y ago
        I thought it was so cool to have an acoustic-coupler modem like Broderick's character in War Games. Never did find the number to connect to the WOPR, though.
    - cfmcdonald 8y ago
      In the mid-80s, only maybe 10% of U.S. households had a computer, much less a modem. You also paid by-the-minute long-distance charges for calling anyone (or any computer) outside your town.
      - Baeocystin 8y ago
        That's why local BBSes that were part of a relay network were so popular. Communicating with folks far outside one's home range 'for free' was exciting!
    - DanBC 8y ago
- ajmurmann 8y ago
  I think what changed is less access to consumption, but access to making your own. When you wanted to host your own community, you need a domain and a server and some technical skills. That was a much higher bar than you need to create a Facebook community. That's ultimately what made the internet boring. Every special interest group used to have their own hand created websites that were a labor of passion. Now it's just another Facebook group or sub Reddit.
  - Baeocystin 8y ago
    That's part of it, no doubt. I got started in the BBS era, pre-WWW, and the folks that set up their own bulletin boards were all interesting in their own right. Each board, even if it used the same base software as another, had its own distinct personality and flavor.
- code_duck 8y ago
  Access to a modem, a piece of hardware that cost hundreds of dollars, and obviously also required a machine that cost thousands. Unless you attended a university, which was also more exclusive in the early 80s than now.
  - Baeocystin 8y ago
    Things changed very rapidly back then. By the time I was old enough to be part of BBS culture (mid-80's), a Commodore was a couple hundred dollars, and a modem not even $100. Penetration by % of population was low compared to today's ubiquity, but competent machines were readily affordable to the majority of Americans.
    - code_duck 8y ago
      That’s true. It’s amazing how the Commodore 64 went from, adjusted, over $1500 to about 350 in just a couple years.

User23 8y ago

"Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded"