On Mon, Aug 24, 2020 at 3:05 PM Ethan O'Toole via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
As someone who did grow up with them, I can tell you that this is absolutely the case. The Internet is presented to people as a "you can GET this, you can GET that!" "Get get get!" ...not "participate", not
Oh no way. There were leaches on BBSes too. Heck, they had their own protocol! LeachZModem. It would complete the entire transfer to disk then tell the remote side that the xfer wasn't successful, back up... back up... back up... abort. So user wouldn't get dinged for the download.
I used to feel guilty if I did not upload something in exchange for downloading something worth it to do so. A lot of the BBSs kept track of uploads and gave you access to more areas of the BBS if you uploaded something first. It had to be on topic. Back then it was not out of the question to get a call from a sysop asking who you were, too. I remember once I signed up for a Star Trek-themed BBS as "Q" and when "Captain Picard" called my apartment phone to see who I was, my girlfriend took the call and called to me in a mocking tone, "um Captain Picard is on the phone looking for Q, nerd". Bill