square wrote:

In parallel, the hoi polloi (or at least the subset that could afford a computer and separate phone line) set up innumerable local dial-up BBSes, some of them strung together via FidoNet.  Centralized services like AOL, Compuserve, and Prodigy took the initiative in delivering a platform that was easy to access and had lots of other users to interact with.

Bahh... Prodigy, a consortium of IBM and Sears, sucked rocks and AOL was/is beneath contempt. I had the unenviable job of tracking and reporting fidonet's worldwide decline in the middle 90s with the release of each week's nodediff and I have no interest in reprising the same role here. My dentist awaits. More later.

Signal to noise is the first thing every geek learns and the first thing every geek forgets. I really want to watch facebitch burn.

The preweb network world was an odd assortment of systems tied together by a haphazard collection telcos and time sharing vendors. When big money pushed in behind APRANET's TCP/IP, competing networks croaked. Resource sharing networks grow and evolve or die, like any other living, breathing thing and the only constant is disruptive change. Or who the fuck knows. I don't.

Probably should have had one less drink before writing the original post, as it kind of strays from the point.

Back in Ye Olde Days, the norm was for individuals or organizations to set up relatively small-scale systems serving a particular community.  In some cases, these were strung together to build larger communication networks, but local control remained, and any broader policy was negotiated among these various fiefdoms.

This has been largely replaced by the walled garden, where large-scale sites own and operate the entire platform.  They are attractive to people because of their large number of users, but the platform is ultimately there to serve the owner, not the users.  If you want to use it in a way that doesn't generate enough profit for them, well then fuck you.

The question is whether it will even be possible in the future for the previous model to be followed.  While it sucked in many ways, it did have the effect of allowing a relatively large number of people to experiment with new things, or at the least to experience for themselves what was involved with running their own site.

Things are not all bad; for $10/month or less you can rent a virtual server and load it up with free software.  But that's a higher barrier than just running one off your home Internet connection for free.  We're looking at a generation of kids growing up with the walled garden as the only (visible) model.

(The gaming community might be another area to consider.  For some games, the publisher runs official servers that are the only choice; others allow individuals to run their own, some giving full flexibility for mods and custom rules.  But I'm not involved with gaming and don't really know how prevalent each model is.)

Forgive me for posting this ancient rubbish here.

May 14, 1995 : Providence Sunday Journal.
http://www.cybertalk.com/051495.htm

Dishing out the data
to keep cyberspace free
By Timothy C. Barmann

If information is money, Sheila Lennon and Bill Whitehouse ought to be rich.

Every day, more than 12 million bytes of computer data stream into their East Side house from a three-foot satellite dish perched on its roof.

The Providence couple are the founders of Radio Free Echomail, a loose coalition of about 50 computer bulletin-board operators throughout New England and as far away as Arizona.

Formed Jan. 1, 1994, RFE shares the electronic mail and public-domain computer programs transmitted to Lennon and Whitehouse's satellite dish.

The dish collects the data that are fed into a small personal computer cobbled together from donated parts, which serves as the group's hub. The data are then passed to other members in about a dozen states by modem and telephone line. Where necessary, the information travels from bulletin board to bulletin board through an elaborate distribution system designed to avoid long-distance calls.

Worldwide hobby

The electronic mail, text files and programs are the lifeblood of a global amateur network called "Fidonet" (as in the dog's name). Formed in 1984, Fidonet is made up of nearly 35,000 bulletin-board operators around the world, most of whom are computer hobbyists, Whitehouse said.

RFE's Fidonet transmission originates in Newport, Tenn., and is beamed to a satellite orbiting in space, then back to satellite receiving dishes all around North America. Other bulletin boards in Rhode Island also receive the Fidonet signal; what's different about the Radio Free Echomail group is that its members don't get any money for their trouble - they pool their skills, time and storage capacities to accomplish what would require a large investment on the part of any one of them.

Instead of making a profit or breaking even by reselling the data to other bulletin boards, Lennon and Whitehouse give it away for free. Any bulletin board can join Radio Free Echomail by pledging to pass the Fidonet files and messages free to their own callers and to other computer bulletin boards. "How are you going to charge for someone's ideas?" he says, referring to the thousands of messages distributed daily by Radio Free Echomail.

In a mission statement posted on their own bulletin board, "Art of the Possible," Whitehouse and Lennon describe it this way: "Access to the electronic town square is a human right."

And they're putting their money where their ideals are. Lennon, a Journal-Bulletin section editor, and Whitehouse, a freelance writer now devoting full time to RFE, paid $659 for the satellite dish system and pay a $40 monthly fee for the service - all out of their own pocket.

Free for all

But Whitehouse said they're not the only ones who contribute to Radio Free Echomail's success. It's a cooperative effort, he said, where the members give of their own resources.

Several boards, for example, act as electronic libraries by storing classic literature texts, operating-system software or missing children photos distributed via Fidonet. Wayne Lisi of Warwick plays a major role in distributing the e-mail and software to other Radio Free Echomail members, and sending RFE's replies back to Fidonet.

The concept behind Radio Free Echomail is not unique. Whitehouse said that a number of other bulletin boards in other states also distribute Fidonet files for free.

Anyone with a computer and a modem can download Radio Free Echomail files and participate in Fidonet's more than 700 discussion topics by connecting to one of the Rhode Island member bulletin boards. (See chart.)

The couple say part of their mission is to curb what they see as a trend - the commercialization of on-line communication.

"This project's loftiest goal," they write, "is to create a beachhead for free public access before a growing telecommunications industry sells our hobby out from under us."

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Basket of flowers was a nice touch.

Is that the ex next to you, Flower Boy?

XregnaR wrote:

You've aged terribly.

No, I've rolled back the clock the other way. My facial creases disappeared, I dropped 10 pounds, exercise, eat and sleep better, actually smile once in a while. Think Benjamin Button for reals. I'm 60, at teenager weight, still have all my hair and none of it grey. Yet. Single life agrees with me and I can prove it.

https://warehamwater.cruelery.com/fp/

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square wrote:

Apple //e-based BBS comes back online after 24-year hiatus.

It's easy to imagine our dystopian future making some of that code useful again but fuck the ancient hardware.

I five fingered this from the Providence Journal's book reviewer 20 years ago and it's still a great read.

Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet