Minitel: The Online World France Built Before the Web (2017)
The failure of Minitel lies mainly in the underlying networking model, and resulting capability to become a service provider.<p>Minitel was based on x25. Contrary to IP, x25 was a network where the terminals are dumb and the network needs to be smart.<p>This means that there was an incredibly (for the time) steep learning curve to transition from a Minitel user to a Minitel provider.<p>This meant that the technology could not be easily studied and tested in a garage (even if some like me did), not impossible but tougher than with IP.<p>You know the rest of the story.<p>There are also more minor factors that lead to fall of Minitel but mainly it was IMHO a closed vs. open model root cause.<p>I was heavily into both service and tech of Minitel at that time, AMA.