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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

That isn't true. One of the reasons why France tends to be a bit behind in all things internet even today is that they had 'minitel', a system that wasn't quite the whole internet (it was information services reachable by phone using a custom terminal with the prestel protocol). It worked so well that they didn't replace their system with the internet when it became available and as a result have been playing catch-up since then.

Just having some applications is not the same as being online, it's just a way for those companies to short-circuit the wait before they can add those users to their 'inventory'.

As a result the incentive to roll out the remainder is for a large part removed. This is the corporate wet-dream for the net: just a couple of big data silos. And where better to trial this idea and lock in the users as much as possible.

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I disagree that minitel itself played any significant role in France's current situation. It was the French governments inability to get out of the way. Minitel was also in the U.S. in the early 90s, but didn't last because competition wasn't outlawed. This is a substantial step up to the current alternative. No one is being 'locked' in, this will increase education and communication, and therefore the welfare of the users. Than, ISPs will come in and wipe them out. You have to start somewhere.

> It was the French governments inability to get out of the way.

That's because FT had the government as their shareholder and they were trying to protect their investment. That's definitely another important factor but the fact that minitel actually worked was definitely a detriment.

I remember visiting France during the Internet boom in the rest of Europe and people there were proudly showing off their minitel terminals (tiny little screens with a slide-out keyboard) and what they could do with it and how they didn't need this newfangled American nonsense in their houses.

Of course that didn't hold in the longer term but it certainly did not help early adoption.

> That's because FT had the government as their shareholder and they were trying to protect their investment.

I remember in 2002, when my family, and all my friends' families had an unlimited internet connection, having to use the minitel to register to some exams for some Universities. It felt like an anachronism. So unconvenient. I wouldn't be surprised if the government played its part in leaving it that way.

The next year though, they changed it and we could register through internet.

The thing is, Minitel, the system not 'quite the whole internet', provided tons of awesome features (unavailable in other places) more than a decade before the 'quite the whole internet' (as available to consumers) even existed.

Now, today the internet obviously exists, but there's a eye-watering amount of capital investment to be made in third world countries not generally well suited for capital investment, and largely populated by people with very little money, before "the whole internet" is broadly available.

So the situation is more akin to standing around in France in say, 1992 and arguing for shutting down Minitel because in 1997, there will be awesome, real internet, and having Minitel around will be an impediment to quick adoption.

Well said. So what are we do to? Not that I necessarily feel motivated to do anything myself, fairly comfortable being an keyboard-warrior and all.

What prevents someone(s) from launching a competing service? Some of the answers to that are obvious, given what you've written.

What are we to do?

Actually France is far ahead of the US in its internet coverage, at a much lower price.

I am in France at the moment, and I have never (exaduration) seen so many feature phones... Getting a French SIM for data was an exercise in frustration even with a local helping me. I got a SIM from Bourgues Telecom by registering it to a friend's name and address. Mostly works but it is really really difficult to give them money (wtf) and they modify unencrypted HTML page image links: http://serverfault.com/questions/339780/who-what-is-http-1-1...

Sellers on second hand trading site leboncoin.com keep saying to use the phone and not email (I.e. I presume they don't have a smart phone and data connection).

One place I stayed at had been trying to get ADSL for two years, even though it was reasonably built up.

As a NZer that travels a lot, the internet infrastructure appears less than 1st world to me.

Where are you in France?

I've got unlimited call + sms + 4G data (limited bandwidth after 20Gb) for 20€/month, and 300Mb/s fibre connection for 35€/month. I have not seen similar rates in the UK/US.

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