
              BBS Businesses Are Dying, Long Live the BBS
                                or
            "I don't wanna get off on a rant here, but..."

     By Mark Robbins   1:130/607  D/FW BBS List keeper since 1982
                    Updated February 02, 1995
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 Let's take a second out here to consider the PAST & FUTURE of BBSing.

 Whether you are a modem novice, new sysop, or old timer sysop, it is very
 evident that certain elements are now coming together to change the way that
 BBS's are operated...and NOT for the better.  This is particularly true for
 BBS's that charge any kind of fee, subscription or donation. A little history
 is in order.

 Since the first bbs's were experimenting with Ward Christensen's Xmodem, or
 operating from CP/M machines, people all over the world have wanted to put
 together a bbs to make a profit.  The ones that were/are completely free of
 charges were set up by rich kids and folks who could afford thousands of
 dollars in hardware and software for the sake of hobby.  But, for the most
 part, making money from the BBS has been a part of every sysop's dream.

 What people fail to consider is that a BBS is ONLY a marketing tool, not
 a product.  The ONLY people who are successful at running a commercial
 BBS are selling products from the bbs.  All bbs's have messages and files.
 Some offer CD ROM's and other games.  Some offer highbrow technical discussion
 but these same exact things are also found on THOUSANDS of identical bbs's.
 Bottom line: you will not be successful charging for something that is found
 elsewhere to be 100% FREE. A BBS is a storefront if you already have a
 product to sell, but it is NOT a product unto itself; and the notion that
 existing businesses will pay you to advertise on your bbs is laughable.
 Most 10-year-olds can set up a bbs of some sort, any company that wants to
 advertise online can easily put up their own BBS to do so.  The wide appeal
 of the Internet also buries the single bbs as a choice for advertisement;
 why advertise on a single dial-up PC when you can advertise globally and
 hit millions of PC's, as well as the major market online services?

 Several money-making gatherings, or conventions, have been put together to
 convince novice and would-be BBS System Operators (Sysops) that a living can
 be easily made from running a bbs.  Most of these are sponsored by magazines
 and their advertisers.  Such events are nearly evangical in nature, you leave
 the party completely sure that you will make your fortune from your own online
 service.  All the vendors present will assure you that by using their
 software, hardware, or gimmick, you can run a business from your bedroom. Out
 in the real world, the ones to make the most money from BBS's are the guys who
 host the conventions - the emphasis often placed on CON.

 Many thousands of sysops have abandoned BBSing because of the profitability
 involved: for every bbs charging a fee, there are a hundred others who are
 offering the same or better service for FREE.  Some folks are not even online
 three months before they give up and shut down the system after spending
 thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours to set it up.

 It's not like a BBS is something you can just buy and plug in, walk away and
 expect checks in the mail.  Every month that goes by brings something else to
 add or upgrade in order to stay competitive; like CD-ROMs and giant chains of
 huge hard drives, games & music toys. And, of course, network connections.

 RIME, or RelayNet, was an early, still-existing pay-net. RIME is more
 like an online club, because it is governed tightly by a brother-sister team
 who take great pride in exercising rules and other power-plays in the net.
 Those who disagree with, or question, the policies and demands of the rulers
 of the net are publicly flogged and even expelled. After awhile on RIME it
 seemed silly to pay someone for the priviledge of being chastised publicly,
 and this happened to anyone who presented ideas the owners disagreed with.

 The most unbiased, non-political type of networking for BBS's are the
 so-called QWK nets. Each BBS's message areas are condensed into a compressed
 packet. This packet can be sent to one BBS or many BBS's, where the messages
 are "decompressed" and properly placed into specific message areas. This
 concept is as close to a truly shared "free" net as you will ever find. And,
 the QWK packet system is now built in to every major BBS software for you.

  Of course there is the "free" FIDO network and the hundred-thousand spin-off
 nets from the FIDO style net system. Well, the network itself is free, but
 the ability of the net to cause your computer to make direct long distance
 phone calls - and do so in a repetitive manner, several calls a MINUTE - can
 drive phone bills into thousands of dollars very quickly.  FIDO rulers are
 voted into positions of leadership at regular intervals, but this mechanism
 turned into local cliques; much like cheerleaders voting each other into
 monthly Beauty Queen.  These local cliques can be great (if you happen to be a
 member of the clique) but the temperment in many locations has caused FIDO
 to be known more popularly as "fight-o net" and you do not want to cross the
 current cheerleaders of your local FIDO group.  Then there is all the flap
 about the ever-imploding INTERNET.

 Internet has got to be the most over-hyped sensationalism item since the
 Beatles first came out.  It is only one of many nets, yet it ties into a
 multitude of nets (like FIDO) which is much like a chicken-and-egg "which came
 first" question. Internet was the darling of college campuses and some
 corporations before the Clinton administration came up with the phrase
 "Information Superhighway".  Now, every novice and his dog will go shopping
 for modems in order to access Internet; even having no idea what Internet is
 composed of, or what it costs.  And most of these are people with dreams to
 make a million bucks off the Internet.  They have no idea how to go about it,
 but the hype everywhere says Internet is a Magical Kingdom where anyone with a
 modem can set up business and make it big. People do buy sensationalism.

 Internet is hardly new.  BBS use of Internet is hardly new.  All the big
 corporate bbs's (which is the definition of CompuServe, Prodigy, AOL etc) are
 loud and long about Internet connectivity when in fact, they are usually just
 offering UUCP mail and newsgroups/conferences. Many home-based bbs services
 have offered UUCP topics for years, despite all the hype about Internet being
 so new and hot and "new territory".  The GLUT of new magazines about Internet
 alone is frightening; and dozens of other slick publications pop up EACH WEEK
 to inform modem novices how to get connected to Internet SOMETHING via modem.

 But guess what?  The Internet - or more correctly, the hype surrounding
 Internet - is helping to kill off the common bbs. Internet can functionally
 do anything a BBS can do, and more - and do it on a global scale. The cost
 of "full" Internet access is still prohibitive to many callers; and this
 could change - especially with help from legislation and regulation by the
 other major players in the movement to kill off BBS's. Internet services
 run from Simple UUCP accounts to full feed SLIP/PPP accounts, meaning for
 a price, a caller can do everything from read Email and Newsgroups, to
 use a graphical interface with the ease of a mouse to access the World Wide
 Web (www) and through www, access things like Library of Congress, many
 universities and corporations, special "home pages" to thousands of products
 and organizations, and more.  The thing about the "full" Internet access is
 that it can be very expensive and very technical for the average bbs sysop to
 set up, at the same time, large corporate services who deal in volume can
 afford to lower the prices of Internet access to the point that it is cheaper
 to rent space from a service provider than it is to set up services yourself.

  Guess who else is killing off BBS use?  Our own wonderful government and
  phone companies. Legislation is going into effect in state after state in
  an authoritarian effort to control and conform all bbs's to something that
  can be taxed and controlled by people who have NO IDEA of what BBSing is
  all about. The phone companies have LONG tried to figure out how to regulate,
  legislate and get their long grubby fingers into the pockets of BBS sysops.
  But when they set up their own BBS - and GTE's 800 line bbs is a prime
  example of this - it is clear there are too many cooks in the soup; as
  the phone company bbs's are among the most awful and kludgy systems around.

 This is not the same as closing down of porno boards or pirate boards. We all
 know specific instances of large, profit-making systems being shut down or
 raided by government and phone officials.  This is a simple case of jealousy.
 As we all know, when a government branch or large corporation puts up a bbs,
 the end result is an utterly AWFUL BBS.  We see better boards being run by
 grandmothers and 10 year old schoolkids, than the corporate/government run
 online systems. WHY? Everyone who is a "control freak" thinks a board should
 do this or that, and too many cooks spoil the soup. Pure and simple. The
 result is government/corporate boards that are so awful that the big boys feel
 they have to interfere and regulate the other boards out there doing a hundred
 times the volume than they are.

 If you keep up with BBS related news, you notice a huge increase of "busts"
 of bulletin boards that make big news story headlines. The BBS is always made
 out to be "the bad guy" while Internet or government bbs's are the
 "Information Superhighway". Again, lots of HYPE both ways.

 Legislation will soon affect every BBS in every state, commercial bbs or free.
 Those nifty lawmakers are sure they must control us - even before they figure
 out HOW we operate, or WHY we operate.  If you take a dollar for your board
 from a caller, you are subject to phone company special high business rates
 and taxes, as well as government taking it's own tax cut.

  Then, the Internet comes along as the saviour of modem users.  No longer is
  BBS competition the guy with 300 CD-ROMS and a trillion terabytes of games
  and networked messaging. BBS competition is now the latest greatest tools of
  Internet - Mosaic and similar tools which let modem users deal with cartoon
  bubbles for information, pictures and animation instead of information. While
  UUCP newsgroups are as current as newsgroups of any other net, it seems
  disgusting that all this technology is forcing ILLITERACY by dealing with
  everything in cartoons, pictures, animation. Little Johnny can't read but he
  can point and click on those cute bunny icons, making him a computer genius
  in the eyes of mom and dad.

 However, Internet providers are increasing both in number, and in the prices
 charged to get to those cute bunny icons.  While many corporations can afford
 the dedicated phone lines (T1 and Fiber) required by most Internet
 applications, Joe Average and the Average family cannot afford these lines.
 Therefore the average family user will pay out the NOSE to rent space each
 month on the net, through a local vendor....whose prices spiral with glee.
 Remember, those cute bunny icons are the INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY.  The BBS's
 are the "bad guys" with actual text instead of comic strips.

 For years, the media (and wanton travelling consultants) make claim that all
 BBS's are only good for spreading viruses.  Once that lie is deflated by
 people who know better, the BBS is then called down as a porno shop, den of
 satan worship, and all manner of evil is falsely attributed to BBS use. This
 is usually the policy of the corporate goons (policy-makers) who have never
 even SEEN a bbs, or the overdressed computer consultant who goes from company
 to company with a bag of disks that are the REAL cause of virus spread in the
 first place.  For years there is a huge effort to make "BBS" a bad word while
 "Information Superhighway" is the godsent revelation of technology.  Kind of
 makes you want to barf.

  In summary: here is what is about to happen to BBS's everywhere, like it or
  not.  The only people to argue this observation are putting on CONventions
  to try and sell folks on the idea that the BBS is now "come of age" for all
  commercial use. This is pure bull; the bbs is past a ripe commercial stage
  as every modem owner and his dog are already trying to get into the act.
  There are more online systems selling access than there are buyers, because
  people buy modems SPECIFICALLY to jump on the magical money-making bandwagon.

  Either a BBS will HAVE to spend thousands of dollars per year playing
  "keep up" with commercial services (new modems, more hardware etc) like
  Internet and CompuServe, or the individual bbs will resign itself to being a
  hobby only, with zero income. Little or no in-between because you can't
  compete with a FREE bbs that gives away the same thing you are charging for.
  Commercial BBS's will have to play eternal catch-up to every other
  commercial online system to keep from being obsolete.  This will raise
  subscription and membership fees everywhere. Even the systems that exist
  to sell items will have to play keep-up, as the Internet itself will offer
  the same items at a better price. There will be a huge amount of fallout
  and many commercial BBS's will either be forced to quit business or
  become a hobby without income; joining the millions of other BBS's who
  offer the same things for free (Internet access included).

  Seems too bad that a unique subculture has come of age, only to be regulated
  and legislated into oblivion; and there will be no "in between" as the board
  is either a huge pay service or a free bbs that offers the same things as
  thousands of other free boards out there; the same games, the same message
  bases, the same everything. All you have to do to make a profit on the
  "Information Superhighway" is buy UNIX mainframes, Novell nets to translate
  the UNIX to DOS, and fiber optic telephone lines costing a thousand a month
  and more; PLUS a UNIQUE IDEA that separates you from the other vendors.

  Remembering that the BBS revolution started with true PC Guru's who used the
  resource to give away information amd programs - the SHARING aspect has been
  completely lost to gross commercialism and sensationalism - it is very sad to
  see BBS use coming to an "End of an Era". The concept of SHARING has no place
  in a world of profit-raking and legislation.

  Next time you hear some airhead talking about getting on the Internet to make
  a fortune - or buying a glut of magazines that tell "how to".... do that
  person a favor and pass them a local bbs list. Even though BBS's as we know
  them are on the way out, we should encourage those novices to make use of the
  BBS world first - or all they will know will be bunny icons at hefty hourly
  rates.


