Sure, but the internet did not become a consumer phenomenon till 1993. There were very few rules on the internet of 1992, but one of those rules was that commerce was not allowed. So for example there was in 1992 a newsgroup named ba.jobs which functioned very much like HN's monthly 'who is hiring?' and 'who wants to be hired?' comment sections, but there was no analog to HN's monthly 'Freelancer? Seeking freelancer?' because although it was considered OK to seek W-2 work (i.e., seek to become a proper employee), seeking 1099 work (i.e., seeking a contract to do some programming work) was considered too much like commerce and consequently not allowed on the internet (or more precisely not allowed on the US internet backbone -- and it would've been impractical to run a newsgroup while avoiding the US backbone).
In 1992 visiting a friend's apartment in San Francisco, I had to explain to someone what the Internet was, whereas my friend who was on Compuserv didn't have to explain what Compuserv was.
Note that this thread has evolved / mutated so much that it no longer has any bearing on the question of whether "The French insisted on doing it all in French while the language of the Internet is English. They isolated themselves and could never have been the center of the web" (a question I have no interest in).
The point is that France was ahead of the US in conferring the benefits of computer-mediated communication and computer-mediated commerce to the average consumer.
In 1992 visiting a friend's apartment in San Francisco, I had to explain to someone what the Internet was, whereas my friend who was on Compuserv didn't have to explain what Compuserv was.
Note that this thread has evolved / mutated so much that it no longer has any bearing on the question of whether "The French insisted on doing it all in French while the language of the Internet is English. They isolated themselves and could never have been the center of the web" (a question I have no interest in).
The point is that France was ahead of the US in conferring the benefits of computer-mediated communication and computer-mediated commerce to the average consumer.