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Why Didn't the Internet Take Off In 1983?
jfruh writes "An amazing pair of videos from the AT&T archives tout a service called Viewtron that brought much of what we expect from the modern Internet to customers' homes in 1983. Online news, banking services, restaurant reviews, shopping, e-mail — all were available on your TV set, controlled by a wireless infrared keyboard. The system had 15,000 customers in cities on the U.S. east coast, but was shut down after $50 million was spent on it. But why did it flop? Was the world just not ready for it?"
Probably because it was ridiculously limited by Internet standards. The Internet took off because you could do pretty much anything with it. The only limits were the technology of the computers and connections, and that technology increased and continues to increase exponentially. The services that AT&T offered were simply not worth the expense. The Internet, when it was eventually privatized, was.
It probably failed where Minitel succeeded ...
Minitel succeeded?
In France ? Sure it succeeded considering that its been in use for 30 years, and only in june of this year will the service be taken permanently offline. And by in use I mean millions of people used it, not geeks but joe six pack.
Your average mom and pop, grandma and granpa. Universities used it, business used it, large, medium and small businesses. Mintel was BIG, so BIG that many doubted that Internet could even succeed in France in the ninties and early 2000s. The system was closed and not exceedingly expensive but it worked. It was secure, it worked and tens of millions used it. If this is not a measure of success then I don't know what is.
Yes, and that would have been enough to start.
However the thinking of AT&T at that tie was "pay per minute", which would translate to pay per page. Imagine that you would go on the internet and pay one cent for every page you vistited, correct of not. The only way to boot it was to make it available for free, just like the BBS hobby systems that came shortly after this.
No, in the 1980s, desktop computers took about 1 second to boot up: Click, beep! and you are going. However, modems were horribly slow. France and a few other countries had Minitel terminals that worked remarkably well. The fact that it flopped in the US of A, doesn't mean it flopped everywhere.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
It was $5 PER HOUR off peak. Peak business hours were like $30/hour. And it was slow. It sometimes took 10 minutes just to start the CB radio chat program.