From Mike Dippel@23:250/11 to All on Saturday, September 26, 2026 19:54:44
I was a police office in Fort Lauderdale, so I had plenty of interactions with local
businessmen. Some became very good friends of mine. I was always looking for ways
to supplement the BBS which was always offered free to local users.
My bright idea was to create a conference area named 'Business Advertisers' and
network it to all of my HobbyNet nodes.
The idea was to charge businesses $25 per year to advertise there, knowing that it
would give them coverage in 3 counties.
The other way to create income was to charge users $25 per year as well I knew I had
to give them something for that, so I made an agreement with the businesses to give
my users some value added benefit.
Any user that paid the $25 would receive a 'HobbyNet Discount Card' that I would
emboss and mail out to them They could use this card at any of the businesses to get a
discount.
I was the only sysOP in the area that was making any money for something that was
normally free to use on any other system.
It didn't make me rich by any means but it did help defray the cost of 4 incoming phone
lines.