@[email protected] I used to live near Montreal - Alex, the Canadian equivalent to Minitel, was launched in the late 80s but eventually failed because it cost a lot more per hour of use than Minitel and faced competition from BBSes (FidoNet was big) which were cheaper to use. The arrival of cheap commercial Internet killed it officially in 1994 but the writing was on the wall a year or two before.

@[email protected] France was far ahead of other countries with regards to networking a large fraction of their population, including online shopping. I knew about Minitel in the early 80s (it was mentioned in an educational computer TV show) and was envious.