A closer look
Long before AOL chat rooms, the French government gave out free Minitel terminals to kill the printed phonebook. What they actually built was a horny proto-internet. By the late 80s, "messageries roses" (pink messages) were generating millions of francs as users paid by the minute to dirty talk with anonymous strangers—who were usually middle-aged men paid to keep the chat going. It was a spectacular government-subsidized thirst trap that kept France lagging in actual internet adoption because their sexy videotex was just too profitable to abandon.
