<i>&gt; basically internet but the wrong way and centralized</i><p>Actually, Teletel&#x2F;Minitel wasn&#x27;t completely centralised. A lot of services ran from their own servers on an X.25 network....<p>The UK&#x27;s inferior Prestel service was completely centralised (well, there was more than one server, but the servers were identical).<p>However....<p><i>&gt; The phone company directly handled payment so there was no friction or paywall.</i><p>That idea certainly worked well at the time. Today, you might want to subscribe to a &quot;content server&quot; accessed via a VPN.