Might've been either NComm or Term. Another piece the puzzle I just remembered was compression utilities such as LHA (and later LZW).

Later on, on Windows machines it was CrossPoint. Again, I can't really remember the name of the interactive terminal software, but I think it was HyperTerminal.

2) Basically, via word-of-mouth from fellow local geeks. In the usual lingo, they wouldn't have been called servers at that time, though, but BBS (or "mailbox" in some places)

3) There were local hubs, but generally it was pretty fragmented and decentralised. To this day, I find it absolutely fascinating how local BBS regularly connected to regional hubs, which in turn connected to continental hubs, from which data then got exchanged with the rest of the world via the Internet and TCP/IP. An email from Europe to the US or a newsgroup post could still take a few hours to arrive at its destination.

4) In general, I want to say it used to be both kinder and more sophisticated than on most online sites and social media (figures ...) today, but to some extent that might be nostalgia talking. However, I particularly remember dedicated politics newsgroups where actual discourse about delicate and controversial subjects was possible - with people even agreeing with you, if your argument was conclusive - can you believe it?

That doesn't mean it was all nice and civilised. Trolls and very vocal people with extreme positions existed at that time already.

5) Some things I remember: Amiga vs. ... (Atari, Mac, later on PC); the future of the Amiga; RISC chips

Another fond memory that just came up is playing VGA Planets, which was a play-by-mail, multi-player turn-based strategy game. While technically you could actually play it via snailmail (what the cool kids used to call traditional physical delivery of letters at the time). the most common way of exchanging the data updates for each turn was via BBS.

Besides, it's from 2016. Unfortunately, I don't own a time machine.

While minor aspects have improved since then, the overall problem indeed remains.

Those weren't devices for personal - or civilian - use, after all.

SSRIs are by an order of a magnitude worse than any other common medication in that respect.

Moreover, like I said there's little evidence these drugs actually achieve any quality-of-life improvement beyond a placebo effect.

This is precisely the story of Les Misérables - that remarkable person being Jean Valjean.

I know of a large EMR software provider that went as far as to hire physicians as salespeople because having doctors talk to other doctors made sales a lot easier for them.

I wrote about this subject in more detail here: https://bjoernkw.com/2016/03/13/load81/

In many other countries it’s rather crumbling infrastructure and massive public spending and bureaucracy with little to show for.

Where do you want to move previously cloud-based applications to?

Who is going to maintain that non-cloud infrastructure?

How do you address and mitigate the risks involved (e.g., security, resilience)?

Unless you can answer those questions, no business will even consider migrating from their existing cloud systems.

That said, there are companies such as VMware that sell "local cloud" setups. Their customers seem like your likely customers.

For instance, there's this tiny, gnarly aspect of where you are allowed to store your customer data.

Hosting data on servers located in the EU isn't required by GDPR in and of itself, as long as you have a valid data processing agreement with the provider stating how and according to which provisions customer data is protected on their machines.

However, according to a 2020 European Court of Justice ruling you're not allowed to transfer any personally identifiable information to companies that are in any way affiliated with a US-based entity (e.g., by virtue of having a US-based parent company) anymore. Just being physically located in the EU isn't sufficient according to this ruling.

The reason for this is that with FISA US law enforcement can force US-based companies to hand over any data, even if that data is stored with an international subsidiary under a completely different jurisdiction.

This basically invalidates all of the provisions and legal frameworks for interacting with non-EU entities that used to be acceptable under GDPR before (e.g., Privacy Shield).

However, not interacting with any US-based or US-related entities at all anymore would be tantamount to ceasing almost all economic activity. So, until (or more pessimistically: unless) the US and the EU come to terms on a new agreement regarding privacy rules, there probably isn't anything a business can do on its own to completely address this issue. At this point, merely hosting data on servers physically located in the EU perhaps amounts to little more than window dressing.

As soon as a business has dealings with a US-based company or an EU-based company owned by a US-based company that potentially might have access to user data that business technically is in violation of GDPR. As of now, as a business you essentially have three alternatives:

1. Run the entire infrastructure you need yourself or have it run by EU-based companies guaranteed to have no relations with US-based entities whatsoever (Good luck with finding those ...). This, for example, includes payment systems and banking infrastructure, because guess where many EU-based banks host their infrastructure? That's right, AWS.

2. Go out of business.

3. Ignore this aspect of GDPR for now, document everything, continue to do your own due diligence, and hope for the best.

Though I didn't make that claim, in fact I precisely think that more often than not that's indeed the case. Regulations often serve no other purpose than to create yet more red tape procedures and self-serving structures.

It failed miserably at that, too. Apart from Plausible there's hardly any business worth mentioning that used GDPR as a competitive advantage. GDPR for the most part has been a stimulus program for lawyers and government busybodies.