From the late 1970s until the mid-1990s, communication via a computer and modem was done for a great deal of people via BBSs. Someone, often a young man, would set their phone line and computer to act as a BBS when they weren't using the line themselves. So you had a network of independent, autonomous bulletin boards, run by young men mostly, called by young men mostly. They created their own culture.
It is not the Verizon/AT&T high speed connection, with Usenet servers being pulled, torrents being throttled with MPAA/RIAA letter being passed back and forth system we have now. I mean we're talking here on a board owned by venture capitalists. Or Slashdot, owned by a public company. Or chatting on Facebook. All of this was not so corporatized then. I mean, things like Usenet, P2P, anything autonomous and independent and similar to how things were done back then are beset upon by the powers that be. There was freedom back then, now things are back to typical USA - corporate-run, unfree, policed, boring etc.