Undertoad • Jan 21, 2017 11:44 am
So in like 1995 or something, this guy from the second-biggest Philadelphia weekly paper did a story on The Cellar.
And he pointed out to me that getting on the BBS was pretty hard to do, because you had to understand modems, and install a weird program that allowed you to connect, and then you had to understand the BBS commands to the point where you could post...
And all this comprehension meant that there was a barrier to entry, of being at least intelligent enough to figure out this stuff. He figured that this was why The Cellar had mostly intelligent people on it.
And I thought, well, partly you are right; but anyone with motivation can learn the commands. The other big BBSes in the area are serving either the pornheads or the warez kiddiez. Those people learned the commands!
In fact, the company that became one of the area's biggest VoIP companies started as a BBS out of a dude's garage... where he was paying people money to spend time putting rare porn magazines through scanners, so he would have enough content to attract a huge crowd.
Another business model ruined by the Internet.
And he pointed out to me that getting on the BBS was pretty hard to do, because you had to understand modems, and install a weird program that allowed you to connect, and then you had to understand the BBS commands to the point where you could post...
And all this comprehension meant that there was a barrier to entry, of being at least intelligent enough to figure out this stuff. He figured that this was why The Cellar had mostly intelligent people on it.
And I thought, well, partly you are right; but anyone with motivation can learn the commands. The other big BBSes in the area are serving either the pornheads or the warez kiddiez. Those people learned the commands!
In fact, the company that became one of the area's biggest VoIP companies started as a BBS out of a dude's garage... where he was paying people money to spend time putting rare porn magazines through scanners, so he would have enough content to attract a huge crowd.
Another business model ruined by the Internet.