Yep, I wasted time on those before I wasted time on the 'net. With Vonage and other VOIP systems, the dial-ups could easily make a comeback - maybe a "FidoNet 2".
I have a new home-built Linux box that's got a bunch of ham radio software on it, but otherwise isn't doing much. Maybe I should dust off the old U.S. Robotics modem and see what's left out there. Last I looked, dial-ups were down to a list of 20 or so.
Perhaps a bunch of us FReepers should ponder this and come up with our own regional BBS list, run by us. Just as a temporary fall-back if this sort of idiocy moves ahead. It'd make a nice alternative comms network, and would give my land line a purpose again.
This idea is a keeper, Charles. Dialup (I'm on dialup) works fine for texting and posting and e-mail, and only slows you down if you are addicted to banner ads, full-motion video blurbs for feminine-hygiene products, and websites that require you to enable Java scripting so they can push full-motion ads at you.
(Cricket is incessantly texting me to come in and buy a new smartphone because they're trying to send me full-motion ads .... I just laugh and delete. I got my Cricket phone because I want to talk to people, not stand under a Niagara of Minority Report advertising!)
Pinging some of our Texas amigos for future reference and possible interest.. .... some of them are IT-literate (okay, then, "IT megaliterate") and could make this work, and as you mentioned, TTY and texting work very nicely over 10 and 20 meters broadcast. There might even be a way to do it over GMRS (the 440-MHz "Citizens' Band Class A" of misty yore), or on Class D/11 meters CB on single sideband.
Pinging ....