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Comment by ilkhd2 | Hacker News Reader

Such an idiotic claim: "stop enrichment of the world's leading internet players." Why not? I mean, if the would tax google, what, a new french service will pop up overnight? So odd...

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The French are still smarting over the irrelevance of Minitel to the wider world. You know, they were once the leading players in getting consumers to adopt network services. Now the world has passed them by.

Just curious (really) - where do you see French smarting over the Minitel ?

I'm French and around me (including friends who are living outside France) nobody seems to be bragging about the Minitel these days (maybe 10 years ago, but now, no really).

We consider it mostly some outdated device that had its importance a long while back.

Any links or feedback to provide ?

I think you may have misunderstood. "smarting over" is somewhat idiomatic English. It means to be embarrassed by something. In other words, you and the person you replied to seem to agree.

Haah - thanks for the clarification.

"Smart" also means, umm, "a stinging sensation" I guess. The physical manifestation of embarrassment, or the physical equivalent of the emotion of embarrassment. You might say, "ow, that smarts". I didn't realize it wouldn't translate :-)

Yep, that's exactly what I mean. We British had Prestel of course, but the loss of that was no dent to national pride, since Tim Berners-Lee is a Brit.

My impression is that the early wide adoption of Minitel created an 'online mindset' that also fueled adoption of the web in France. Pride of people in power may be another story, but everyday usage seems to come pretty natural to them.

It looks like they came little late to the internet party, but caught up quickly: http://www.ipsos-na.com/news/pressrelease.cfm?id=3030

The world has passed them by? They have caught up you know - France has higher bandwidth at lower prices than, say, the U.S.

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