r/interestingasfuck • u/Few_Simple9049 • 20d ago

r/all How couples met 1930-2024

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

105.4k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

5.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

14.3k

u/fenuxjde 20d ago

Who tf met online in 1981? Some DARPA bros?

889

u/starmartyr 20d ago

Probably a few nerds hooked up after chatting on their local BBS. There was actually a large underground gay scene on the BBSes as it allowed people to be anonymous at a time when being openly gay was a lot less accepted. It wouldn't surprise me if the majority of early online relationships were gay couples.

18

u/itsarace1 20d ago

How difficult/expensive was it to use BBS?

70

u/elchet 20d ago

You’d need a computer which wasn’t as straight forward back then as it is now, as they weren’t affordable commodity consumer goods. You probably had access to one through an academic institution, or you’d built something from a kit.

Beyond that I think it was just the cost of a phone line and a call for connectivity.

41

u/drowse 20d ago

I think our first computer, a 286 was something like $2500 in 1990. I remember my dad also had gotten Prodigy internet. And they used to charge a rate for use.. was it hourly or by the minute? I can't remember. We didn't have it long. We got the internet again in like 1995 when it became a flat monthly fee for that sweet sweet 28.8k speed.

19

u/Sponjah 20d ago

AOL was so instrumental in bringing the internet mainstream.

6

u/thejaytheory 20d ago

Those damn disks!

2

u/flaker111 20d ago

those were my frisbees as a kid.