These kind of useful services were almost all provided by state owned entities (train tickets fit the bill). Other that train, you could also apply for national

These kind of useful services were almost all provided by state owned entities (train tickets fit the bill). Other that train, you could also apply for national exams and get the results. That's also why you ended up keeping a box in your home that only help in very specific occasions (except if you're taking the train two times a week), and most people would just go to the local post office to use the freely available Minitel when really needed. I think the worst part was that many of these services were late to embrace internet partly because of the Minitel being a stopgap.