Any idea why this was shot in San Francisco? Why was technology so popular there, even back then?
I suspect it's because WELL and other early systems were there. France actually had a precursor system a couple of years earlier, which was only finally turned off a couple of years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel
Notice that Compuserve was in Columbus, not in SanFran.
We ruled the internet even when it was dial-up via rotary phones.