3 ms·

First of all, "in the US alone," is misleading because the vast majority of BBS and their users were actually in the US. In 1990, the Internet was composed of 3

First of all, "in the US alone," is misleading because the vast majority of BBS and their users were actually in the US. In 1990, the Internet was composed of 350,000 hosts being accessed by over a million computers (aka users). 60K BBSs means a capacity of exactly 60K users simultaneously, while the Internet capacity at the time was... more that a million simultaneous users... IOW all of them. The Internet (called ARPANET) was very well established by 1973, but experienced exponential growth from the advent of WWW. Your citation has no citation of its own. Curious how there could be 17M BBS users in 1994 when the US had only 11M modem-equipped computers.[1] IOW, the wiki is very wrong, and the claim is unsupportable. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/1995/10/16/americans-going-online-explosive-growth-uncertain-destinations/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/1995/10/16/americans-go...

icedchai 4y ago
Even if it’s only 11 million, most of those users were not on the internet in 1994. They were on local BBSes, CompuServe, GEnie, The Source, and other online services. Do you remember that time? I do. I’ve started BBSing in the late 80’s and first got on the Internet in 1991. It was mostly academics, defense contractors, and early ISPs… which generally started as BBSes. I don’t dispute the early internet could’ve supported many more users than BBSes. They simply weren’t there yet.
- Maursault 4y ago
  You are vastly overestimating the size of that population of BBS users, and vastly underestimating the population of academics and students at hundreds of universities as well as engineers and computer scientists at hundreds of companies. It wasn't everyone logging into BBS, wasn't most people, and if you were logging into BBS in 1990, you were pretty special. In 1983, when I was using BBS, I never met another soul until 1989 that had any idea what I was doing. If you were at university using the Internet, this was commonplace by 1990, and really it was pretty common by 1980. But since you're apparently unaware that a network of networks of hundreds of universities and hundreds of corporations spanning the globe existed prior to your awareness of BBS, it makes a lot of sense that you might believe that.
  - icedchai 4y ago
    I think you are vastly overestimating the number of university users that actually used the Internet in those early days. For example, just because a school "had access" did not mean all their students actually used it. Around here, even as late as 1993, at a state school, you had to sign up for a CS class to even get an email address. I stand by my statement that the total number of BBS users (including online services, like CompuServe, Prodigy, GEnie, pre-Internet AOL, etc.) out numbered the users on the early Internet in 1990.
    - Maursault 4y ago
      Let's break it down. CompuServe, the oldest of the big 3 dialup services, never had more than 250K subscribers, and it was bought by AOL in 1997. When AOL went public in 1992, it had fewer than 200K subscribers.[1] At its peak, in 2002, AOL had 25M subscribers.[2] The rest of the dialup services never totaled more than 500K subscribers combined, total for their entire existance. Again, in 1990, the Internet had 350K hosts worldwide and over a million users. The total number of dialup subscribers in 1990 doesn't begin to approach that number, and it doesn't matter if you pile on all BBS users, because BBS at its peak, low hundreds of them. Within 2 years of WWW arriving, there were only 20 left.[3] So take your 10K BBS users, take all the CompuServe users ever, 250K, take the 200K AOL users in 1990, and all the other dialup subscribers for the entirety of their existence, 500K, and with this screwed up cheating math, you might get a million to match the over a million Internet users in 1990. [1] https://time.com/3857628/aol-1985-history/ https://time.com/3857628/aol-1985-history/ [2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Aol_subscribers_Q201-Q407.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Aol_subs... [3] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/11/the-lost-civilization-of-dial-up-bulletin-board-systems/506465/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/11/the-l...
      - icedchai 4y ago
        I will admit it difficult to get accurate numbers, but this Wikipedia article claims CompuServe had 600K and Prodigy had 450K+ subscribers in 1990: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigy_(online_service) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigy_(online_service) It references NY Times articles that are pay walled. This graph shows roughly 12,000 BBSes existing in 1990: http://bbslist.textfiles.com/support/statistics.html http://bbslist.textfiles.com/support/statistics.html How many users do you think each one had? 50? 100? Of course there is some overlap and it's impossible to figure out actual unique users. Regardless, it is way more than 10K. One large BBS alone (Rusty and Edie's, which got busted for piracy in a big scandal) had over 14,000 subscribers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusty_n_Edie%27s_BBS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusty_n_Edie%27s_BBS And that last article from The Atlantic says there are 20 dialup BBSes existing when it was written in 2016, not within 2 years of the WWW arriving: "Did any direct-access, telephone-dial-up BBSes survive the internet’s proverbial asteroid? Sure enough, there are about 20 known dial-up BBSes in North America" The Internet killed BBSing, that's for sure. But that didn't happen until the mid 90's when it went mainstream.
AlbertCory 4y ago
Let's just remember that most Internet services nowadays measure their traffic as "7-day actives" and sometimes "30-day actives." (Maybe for Twitter it's "daily actives"?) That's a way of distinguishing people who are just signed up from those who've actually done something in the last N days. I doubt that either the Internet or the BBS's have those numbers for 1990 or thereabouts.
morsch 4y ago
First of all, "in the US alone," is misleading because the vast majority of BBS and their users were actually in the US. Another vague assertion stated confidently, but without sources. How do you know this? What percentage is a vast majority? 60K BBSs means a capacity of exactly 60K users simultaneously Again, stated like a fact, but there were BBSs with multiple lines. What percentage? I don't know. Do you? But "capacity" is a red herring anyway, just like "significance".
- icedchai 4y ago
  Multi-line BBSes were few and far between. As a very active BBS user in 1990, there were about 100 systems in my local calling area. Of those, I only remember 3 or 4 having multiple lines. A system like that was a serious investment: you had the $$$ for the phone lines every month, plus all the equipment for the system itself.

icedchai 4y ago

Even if it’s only 11 million, most of those users were not on the internet in 1994. They were on local BBSes, CompuServe, GEnie, The Source, and other online services. Do you remember that time? I do. I’ve started BBSing in the late 80’s and first got on the Internet in 1991. It was mostly academics, defense contractors, and early ISPs… which generally started as BBSes. I don’t dispute the early internet could’ve supported many more users than BBSes. They simply weren’t there yet.

Maursault 4y ago
You are vastly overestimating the size of that population of BBS users, and vastly underestimating the population of academics and students at hundreds of universities as well as engineers and computer scientists at hundreds of companies. It wasn't everyone logging into BBS, wasn't most people, and if you were logging into BBS in 1990, you were pretty special. In 1983, when I was using BBS, I never met another soul until 1989 that had any idea what I was doing. If you were at university using the Internet, this was commonplace by 1990, and really it was pretty common by 1980. But since you're apparently unaware that a network of networks of hundreds of universities and hundreds of corporations spanning the globe existed prior to your awareness of BBS, it makes a lot of sense that you might believe that.
- icedchai 4y ago
  I think you are vastly overestimating the number of university users that actually used the Internet in those early days. For example, just because a school "had access" did not mean all their students actually used it. Around here, even as late as 1993, at a state school, you had to sign up for a CS class to even get an email address. I stand by my statement that the total number of BBS users (including online services, like CompuServe, Prodigy, GEnie, pre-Internet AOL, etc.) out numbered the users on the early Internet in 1990.
  - Maursault 4y ago
    Let's break it down. CompuServe, the oldest of the big 3 dialup services, never had more than 250K subscribers, and it was bought by AOL in 1997. When AOL went public in 1992, it had fewer than 200K subscribers.[1] At its peak, in 2002, AOL had 25M subscribers.[2] The rest of the dialup services never totaled more than 500K subscribers combined, total for their entire existance. Again, in 1990, the Internet had 350K hosts worldwide and over a million users. The total number of dialup subscribers in 1990 doesn't begin to approach that number, and it doesn't matter if you pile on all BBS users, because BBS at its peak, low hundreds of them. Within 2 years of WWW arriving, there were only 20 left.[3] So take your 10K BBS users, take all the CompuServe users ever, 250K, take the 200K AOL users in 1990, and all the other dialup subscribers for the entirety of their existence, 500K, and with this screwed up cheating math, you might get a million to match the over a million Internet users in 1990. [1] https://time.com/3857628/aol-1985-history/ https://time.com/3857628/aol-1985-history/ [2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Aol_subscribers_Q201-Q407.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Aol_subs... [3] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/11/the-lost-civilization-of-dial-up-bulletin-board-systems/506465/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/11/the-l...
    - icedchai 4y ago
      I will admit it difficult to get accurate numbers, but this Wikipedia article claims CompuServe had 600K and Prodigy had 450K+ subscribers in 1990: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigy_(online_service) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigy_(online_service) It references NY Times articles that are pay walled. This graph shows roughly 12,000 BBSes existing in 1990: http://bbslist.textfiles.com/support/statistics.html http://bbslist.textfiles.com/support/statistics.html How many users do you think each one had? 50? 100? Of course there is some overlap and it's impossible to figure out actual unique users. Regardless, it is way more than 10K. One large BBS alone (Rusty and Edie's, which got busted for piracy in a big scandal) had over 14,000 subscribers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusty_n_Edie%27s_BBS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusty_n_Edie%27s_BBS And that last article from The Atlantic says there are 20 dialup BBSes existing when it was written in 2016, not within 2 years of the WWW arriving: "Did any direct-access, telephone-dial-up BBSes survive the internet’s proverbial asteroid? Sure enough, there are about 20 known dial-up BBSes in North America" The Internet killed BBSing, that's for sure. But that didn't happen until the mid 90's when it went mainstream.

AlbertCory 4y ago

Let's just remember that most Internet services nowadays measure their traffic as "7-day actives" and sometimes "30-day actives." (Maybe for Twitter it's "daily actives"?) That's a way of distinguishing people who are just signed up from those who've actually done something in the last N days. I doubt that either the Internet or the BBS's have those numbers for 1990 or thereabouts.

morsch 4y ago

First of all, "in the US alone," is misleading because the vast majority of BBS and their users were actually in the US. Another vague assertion stated confidently, but without sources. How do you know this? What percentage is a vast majority? 60K BBSs means a capacity of exactly 60K users simultaneously Again, stated like a fact, but there were BBSs with multiple lines. What percentage? I don't know. Do you? But "capacity" is a red herring anyway, just like "significance".

icedchai 4y ago
Multi-line BBSes were few and far between. As a very active BBS user in 1990, there were about 100 systems in my local calling area. Of those, I only remember 3 or 4 having multiple lines. A system like that was a serious investment: you had the $$$ for the phone lines every month, plus all the equipment for the system itself.