How did that actually work, logistically, in an era before reliable online payment systems? I’ve heard of paid BBS systems, but I never gave much thought to how they got their money.
You either paid up front for a set number of hours or were billed after the fact for usage.
Yeah IRE’s “free-to-play” model was always incredibly predatory. I actually think how they treat both their “volunteers” and even paid staff might be worse. But that’s a rant for another thread and another day.
I was a volunteer on IRE! Ask me anything lol I never had an issue as a volunteer, except for other players. I also knew Matt Mihaly and some of his team. They were nice people (at least to me) and I never heard any complaints from the paid staff. But I’m sure it happened, and I’m sure that some paid staff and volunteers had bad experiences, if only because it was really the wild west era of MUDing and in general some people are terrible to other people online.
I do think the model was predatory, but I believe that about any micro-transaction sort of situation. I spent a considerable amount of money on IRE games and never got anywhere, mostly because I didn’t understand how to make triggers.
