As a user my only cost involved was purchasing a 1200baud modem for my C64 I was around 13 at the time. Shortly after that I got a dedicated phone line to not t

As a user my only cost involved was purchasing a 1200baud modem for my C64 I was around 13 at the time. Shortly after that I got a dedicated phone line to not tie up the house phone. I don't recall what terminal emulation software I used but I believe that was free. Biggest problem was a lot of the BBSs were single phone line setups so you would get a busy signal trying to dial in if someone else was online. A few years later I setup my own bbs running Color64 bbs software (upgraded hardware to a 2400 baud hayes modem and 20meg hard drive to facilitate file exchanges). The experience was nothing like social networks today. Some BBSs had multiple phone lines and supported concurrent users which gave you the ability to chat someone on a limited basis with whoever else was signed in but it was, for me, more file sharing than community focused.