Not just charge by the minute on the service, how about the long distance charges to call the nearest access number?
In my case, San Juan (70 miles, mostly busy) and Miami (1000 miles) or New Jersey (1600 miles, same price but better connections because undersea cables land there). It introduced a pattern of irresponsible spending habits that continues to this day.
I remember the scripts we passed around so that you could hop on CServe and download all the things you cared about, read it offline, respond offline and then dial back in to sync.
This was at a time when my 486-33 with its 400MB hard drive and 16MB of ram was bleeding edge (for the first month I owned it at least).
I see your 1200 and raise a self-built 300 baud modem with loads of blinkenlights and switches, housed in a wooden enclosure only slightly smaller than the C64. Hey, it worked, I was a poor student. Initially I had to dial the BBS using a rotary phone, later I added a pulse relay to automate dialling - 19th century here I come!
In my case, San Juan (70 miles, mostly busy) and Miami (1000 miles) or New Jersey (1600 miles, same price but better connections because undersea cables land there). It introduced a pattern of irresponsible spending habits that continues to this day.