I think one of the biggest barriers to entry was either fighting over the phone line, or having a 2nd phone line. Presumably, if you didn't have a computer, you

I think one of the biggest barriers to entry was either fighting over the phone line, or having a 2nd phone line. Presumably, if you didn't have a computer, you weren't interested in BBSing. Once you had a computer and the interest, yeah, the modem costs, and phone line costs. I was very fortunate in that we had a 2nd phone line in our house, so I could use it as often as I wanted. I just had to beg/borrow/steal for a modem. First modem was 2400bps, I later got a 14.4k modem for christmas a few years later (Absolute revolution; 6x increase in transfer speeds overnight. And of course, later, 28.8k, 33.6k. I never did the "56k" scam because they wouldn't push much past 42k anyway. You had to actually FIND BBSes by looking in a magazine or something that listed them. (or, less frequently, from friends). Most BBSes were 1-2 lines, though one I frequented had 4 lines, and there were a few 'huge' BBSes with a dozen lines. Some particularly SMALL BBSes were listed with certain hours, like 10pm-6am only. I never talked to a SysOp of such a small board, but I imagine they added a 2nd phone line sooner rather than later, and went dedicated, because you'd get tired of modems dialing your home phone "after hours" really quickly. Many boards had membership/donation models, where you got the 'good' content if you donated. It was pretty different from current social media because your community was the local BBS community, not necessarily your IRL friends.