• Credit card for purchases
• Telephone bill for surfing time: rates depend on the sites visited
Users first subscribed to individual services, but traffic grew quickly after
the telephone company offered a "kiosk" model (named after newsagent's shops).
Minitel and voice charges appeared combined on the monthly telephone bill,
with no breakout of fees. Service providers received two-thirds of the US$10
an hour that customers typically paid as of 1988. As the telephone company handled
bill collection, and users who did not pay bills lost telephone service, the customer
acquisition cost for service providers was low. The single bill encouraged impulse shopping,
in which users intending to use one service found and used others while browsing. As users'
identities and services were anonymous, Minitel use was high at work where companies paid for
telephone service.
