The BBS scene wasn't completely homogeneous. In terms of absolute numbers, a majority of boards were hobbyist systems: single phone line, free to use (but limit

The BBS scene wasn't completely homogeneous. In terms of absolute numbers, a majority of boards were hobbyist systems: single phone line, free to use (but limited time per day per user), often a teenager sysop, heavily customized menus and ANSI graphics, curated selection of games and files. Some of these hobbyist systems were underground "HPAVC" boards, focusing on pirated software and viruses and the like, usually invite-only, and everyone using pseudonyms. Others were clean systems, sometimes requiring real names, usually an adult SysOp. Most hobby systems were somewhere in between the two, at least in my area. But there were also larger systems with 10-50+ phone lines, running more expensive software (usually MajorBBS/Worldgroup, costing several thousand dollars). These were usually pay-to-use. Sometimes membership also included dial-up internet access; as the BBS scene waned, some of these transitioned to become regional ISPs. Most boards had local message subs, meaning different discussion topic areas you could post in. Some boards also participated in message networks, such as FidoNet, where you could converse with people across the country or globe -- it just took a day or more for your message to reach all BBSes in the network. It wasn't a utopia. There were still trolls and ignorant people. I suppose the difference in the dial-up days was that those trolls tended to live in the same region as you, which arguably isn't an improvement. At its peak, in relative terms there was definitely a bit of a real industry built up around the BBS scene: a few small to medium sized companies, several hundred independent developers of BBS software and games, publications such as BoardWatch, industry conferences such as ONE BBS CON, etc. Compared to the modern software industry, it was absolutely tiny; but the software and computing landscape as a whole was much smaller then. I started using dial-up BBSes in 1993 (Philly area), and later developed a couple BBS games from 1999-2003 -- by which point most boards had moved to telnet, allowing them to have many concurrent users instead of being limited to physical phone lines. My games took advantage of this by being highly multi-player, and one of those games became relatively popular for that time period, running on several hundred boards at its peak. Developing BBS games was an interesting experience, definitely a mix of positive and negative though.