I was also a sysop as a child. Every night / 4am I had an incoming call from FidoNet syncing latest state. that also included emails… So the ‘local’ community

I was also a sysop as a child. Every night / 4am I had an incoming call from FidoNet syncing latest state. that also included emails… So the ‘local’ community was indeed nice, but then some of my family moved abroad. and suddently Skype with a dial-up and internet was a game changer for them. Maybe the newer decentralized approaches will get some of that.