AFAIK the French minitel system was used by The People over there. It was semi obligatory for e.g subscribing to (some?) higher education, and maybe interactin

AFAIK the French minitel system was used by The People over there. It was semi obligatory for e.g subscribing to (some?) higher education, and maybe interacting with some governemental services. The People, once introduced to minitel, had some commercial services available, including primitive porn. I consider minitel a fork in the road to the www, with different architectural choices leading to a different net culture. Minitel had a clear consumer vs producer split and 1 central governer, compared to the www free-for-all peer to peer vision. It probably would not have grown so fast as the www. But it had payment infra from day 1 and no 100%free connectivity, so it wouldn't become the privacy invasive ad infestation the www has become.