> many services that could be used by non-technical people and had a built in monetization system for information providers
There's still a Minitel today: it's the Apple ecosystem.
Minitel demonstrated regular people were willing to buy services on a machine (phone, phone-like terminal, computer) and use it as part of their normal lives.
If you're familiar with french language, some people argued that most of the "Internet" we use today is in fact technically, politically and economically closer to the Minitel. I'm of course refering to Benjaming Bayart's "Internet Libre ou Minitel 2.0" conference from 2008 which gave birth to the non-profit ISP federation (FFDN).
Why singleout apple, when our lives are surrounded by digital subscriptions from a lot of other companies too? Office, Netflix, Youtube Premium, Spotify, Blackblaze etc, etc...
Because the Minitel was completely vertivally integrated.
The terminals, software it ran (as the "OS"), Network and billing were all handled by one entity. And only this entity could approve software for distribution. It was a completely centralized walled garden.
Office, Netflix, Youtube Premium, Spotify, Blackblaze can all run anywhere, and on platforms such as Windows are free to do their own distribution.
There's still a Minitel today: it's the Apple ecosystem.
Minitel demonstrated regular people were willing to buy services on a machine (phone, phone-like terminal, computer) and use it as part of their normal lives.