Mu* and history and time

Faraday

@bear_necessities said:

ou weren’t paying for the MUD, not really. On AOL, you were paying for the hours you used to dial up. The games themselves were free. I believe the same thing for Gemstone on GEnie, you were paying for GEnie and not for Gemstone itself.

That isn’t what the article says. It specifically says that there were commercial MUDs that made money off people connected to them, and that when AOL became a monthly instead of hourly fee their business model collapsed. (implied: because accessing the internet suddenly became easier and cheaper and hourly fees felt excessive) If people were only paying AOL, none of that makes any sense.

There were also pay-for-access BBS systems that people dialed into directly. Pavel is probably right that people just mailed a check or sent cash. Light research suggests that some of the larger studios possibly invested in some early online payment portals.

Pavel

From what I have managed to glean cheque and money order were popular, but some services also accepted AMEX and VISA after a time (Toth, 2011, Section 63). Though Mostellor (1999) seems to suggest that services like CompuServe would tack on the hourly fee as part of the user’s subscription in some way, though I could be misreading.

Adjusted for inflation those prices are… ridiculous. Gemstone III during peak hours would be ~$46USD/hr and British Legends(MUD1) would be ~$33USD/hr. I love you, Faraday, but I’m not paying you over five hundred bucks a month for a casual twenty hours of pretendy funtimes.

References
Mostellor, T. (1999, May 16). Genie and CompuServe offer die-hard adventure fans wide new on-line worlds. Richard A. Bartle. Mud.Co.Uk. https://mud.co.uk/richard/pcmjun90.htm

Toth, V. T. (2011, December 31). News archive 1997-2011. Mud2.Com. https://www.mud2.com/CMS/about/news/13-news-archive-1997-2011

Faraday

@Pavel said:

Adjusted for inflation those prices are… ridiculous. Gemstone III during peak hours would be ~$46USD/hr and British Legends(MUD1) would be ~$33USD/hr. I love you, Faraday, but I’m not paying you over five hundred bucks a month for a casual twenty hours of pretendy funtimes.

Thanks for the sources! And yeah, those prices seem crazy, but keep in mind that with AOL at the time you were also paying $3-4/hour just to check your email and access early internet forums, on top of whatever you were paying your phone company. People just weren’t online as much. I remember having to meter usage carefully until I got basically unlimited access through the university computer labs.

MisterBoring

@Faraday said:

And yeah, those prices seem crazy, but keep in mind that with AOL at the time you were also paying $3-4/hour just to check your email and access early internet forums, on top of whatever you were paying your phone company.

Looking through my archive of old CDROMs, I can also confirm from a few AOL CDs I kept for my collection that AOL had an unlimited plan as well that was $20 a month.

Wizz

@Faraday said:

People just weren’t online as much. I remember having to meter usage carefully until I got basically unlimited access through the university computer labs.

fun story: I was 14 when I had to get my first job…because I had moved across the country with my family and we didn’t have internet in our new place, so I just innocently used the dial-up number I had memorized. not understanding that this, y’know, actually costs money.

so my mom gets hit with a phone bill of almost a thousand dollars.

Cobalt

@Pavel said:

@Prototart said:

an actual WORA Wiki

OH BOY WAS THERE

Thenomain’s still around, but I think he’s the last person of admin-level around from that era. Lord knows if he’s kept anything.

I can ask but 100% doubt. He’s fairly done with the hobby in general.

Faraday

@MisterBoring said:

I can also confirm from a few AOL CDs I kept for my collection that AOL had an unlimited plan as well that was $20 a month.

Yeah, that came later though as competition heated up between the dial-up providers. The original AOL was a monthly fee with a few “free” hours and then an hourly rate on top of that. Reference

Pavel

@Faraday Oh yeah, totally not unusual prices for the time. The main difference between now and then? I’d be the one paying this time.

Faraday

@Pavel I am amused beyond words that you made that your signature.

Missprint

It’s not a history of individual games or experiences, but Sherry Turkle, who works at MIT, has written books on online communities, including MUSHs. I know they’re covered in her book “Life on the Screen” but may crop up in other ones.