Check out BBS: The Documentary - I think it is freely streaming somewhere at this point. Jason Scott made a huge, in-depth analysis of BBSes and their impact.

Check out BBS: The Documentary - I think it is freely streaming somewhere at this point. Jason Scott made a huge, in-depth analysis of BBSes and their impact. There are many elements from that era that still exist in a weird way. The core limitation of connecting to a BBS was that it was a normal phone call and would tie up your phone line. And before cell phones, calling outside your area code was expensive! Likely $1 a minute in the 80s. So BBS communities tended to be local and quasi-anonymous, and often turned into real life meetups. You would log on, check your messages, your door games and some forums then leave. Door games were structured much like phone games now with limited moves per day, but done for phone line reasons instead of gamification/rev generation.