Minitel: The rise and fall of the France-wide web

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18610692

by 1gor • 14 years ago

69 21 14 years ago

bbc.co.uk

da_n• 14 years ago

I think this whole Minitel story is fascinating and should be used as an example of why a free and open internet is always necessary. This shows what happens when you have a locked-down, closed system controlled by private companies and government. There was no room to allow innovation, stagnating until the www put the nail into its coffin.

1gor2• 14 years ago

I wonder if Facebook will be tomorrow's Minitel...

But seriously, why some network system layers failed and others thrived? It is not protocol. Gopher was also TCP/IP based, and it has disappeared...

InclinedPlane• 14 years ago

It's classic worse is better: http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html

The web had a much, much faster "OODA" loop than competing platforms, and it had a much easier route to being more widely used. Sometimes we fail to see elegance because we see right through it.

allardschip• 14 years ago

I think you can safely say it is today's Minitel for many.

gaius2• 14 years ago

But on the other hand, you do get all the benefits of the advanced technology 10 years before the rest of the world. It's easy to scoff now, but remember what Newton said about standing on the shoulders of giants. And remember that ARPAnet could easily have gone the same way, it was also a govt-backed project...

arethuza2• 14 years ago

"govt-backed project"

As was initial development of the Web - at least indirectly through CERN.

thibaut_barrere• 14 years ago

I don't know, really: the Minitel also brought tons of money to people who later, in turn, innovated or disrupted markets.

Xavier Niel is the canonical example of that (the guy behind Free mobile/dsl).

alx• 14 years ago

Webcam for minitel: http://tetalab.org/blog/update-webcam-pour-minitel-%C3%A7a-m...

Loic3• 14 years ago

The article is very biased and for some points with factual errors:

> This meant that even the poorest of households contained a set, subsidised by the taxpayer.

It was a freemium model, France Telecom was making a lot of money and was able to fund the Minitel without tax payer money. In fact, France Telecom was a cash cow for the government, not a single time took France Telecom money from the tax payers.

Also, my grand parents were able to use it, basically everybody could use it, the Internet took off extremely well in France across all the generations because it was possible to say: "this is like the Minitel, just type here the address, and there you go".

I did introduction courses to learn how to use Internet in the late 90's and for the 100's of people I helped, the Minitel analogy was perfect and allowed us to move forward extremely fast.

Edit: Thinking about it, this is the same model as the app store. To sell on the app store, you need to ask Apple first. You had to ask France Telecom at that time.

1gor2• 14 years ago

    Thinking about it, this is the same model as the app store.

Here is an analogy with WWW vs. Minitel case.

Does Apple allow multiple alternative app stores? If not, then Android should eventually make it obsolete, since you do not have to 'ask Google' to create and market a mobile app there.

simonh• 14 years ago

Only if the barrier to entering the app store is high enough to prevent high quality apps getting into it.

Furthermore if the app store barriers filter out poor quality apps and allow in high quality ones, then it actually adds value.

JumpCrisscross• 14 years ago

This is BBC - I'd be slow to call them biased.

»"not a single time took France Telecom money from the tax payers"

France Telecom's capital investments provided by the government and cheap financing rates are forms of subsidy. Further, they get bailed out - last I remember is €9 billion in 2002 [1].

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2542297.stm

Loic3• 14 years ago

2002 was way after the Minitel and it was after France Telecom financed France to meet the EU conditions to have the Euro. It was for about $7 billions in 1997[1].

And the BBC is biased, really, especially if you look at it from a non Western point of view. The thing is, you (and me) live in the Western capitalistic world, that is, we cannot assess easily the bias, because our references are including it. This is a very interesting topic but far too controversial to be discussed in the comments here.

[1]http://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/20/news/20iht-euro.t.html

atestu• 14 years ago

But France Telecom had a monopoly and was owned by the government.

So… it was subsidized by the taxpayer in a way, or am I missing something?

ernesth• 14 years ago

Another way to put it would be that the taxpayer was subsidized by France Telecom.

Loic3• 14 years ago

France Telecom was a company which happens to have the government as shareholder. The company itself was making money by providing telecommunication services. As someone living in France, you did not had to pay France Telecom money if you were not using its services. France Telecom was only funded through invoicing customers.

This is not the same than let say EDF, the French energy monopoly, where all the research to get nuclear energy was funded by the government through the CEA[1]. France Telecom had enough money to fully fund its research centres. They had in fact some of the best research labs.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commissariat_%C3%A0_l%27%C3%89n...

agumonkey• 14 years ago

Talking about France lack of insights toward networking, checkout Louis Pouzin work. His work was among the first using datagrams. Ironically it was pulled down for various reasons in Europe.

Minitel: The rise and fall of the France-wide web

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