Platforms in the Public Interest: Lessons from Minitel

ABSTRACT
Platforms such as Facebook predominate cyberspace today, providing private infrastructures for public culture. These systems are so massive that it's easy to forget that the digital world was not always like this. More than two decades before widespread Internet access, millions of people in France were already online, chatting, gaming, buying, selling, searching, and flirting. This explosion of digital culture came via Minitel, a simple video terminal provided for free to anyone with a telephone line. After thirty years in service, Minitel offers a wealth of data for thinking about internet policy and an alternative model for the internet's future: a public platform for private innovation.