It's one of the main things I miss about BBSs. I've thought about trying to start a BBS that requires a low ping, using the speed of light to encourage locality.
Expensive long-distance phone calls sucked, but the side-effect was that nearly everybody on a given board was in the same or one-adjacent local calling area. They were strangers behind a screen only to a degree; they were also your neighbors, schoolmates, and coworkers. If someone needed something, someone else could bike or drive over and help. We had parties, we had picnics, we organized camping weekends. They didn't stay strangers for long.
Yes the global internet was big and shiny and it let you talk to anyone anywhere. So far away that they might in fact be a dog, and you'd never know. But for all we gained, we lost that sense of local connection, and I didn't appreciate that aspect until it was gone.
Expensive long-distance phone calls sucked, but the side-effect was that nearly everybody on a given board was in the same or one-adjacent local calling area. They were strangers behind a screen only to a degree; they were also your neighbors, schoolmates, and coworkers. If someone needed something, someone else could bike or drive over and help. We had parties, we had picnics, we organized camping weekends. They didn't stay strangers for long.
Yes the global internet was big and shiny and it let you talk to anyone anywhere. So far away that they might in fact be a dog, and you'd never know. But for all we gained, we lost that sense of local connection, and I didn't appreciate that aspect until it was gone.