>And then there was the Amish community in Pennsylvania. Eva had to fly out there to negotiate for the “Cyberia.com” domain name they had bought. “It was a proper barn with horse carts and a wall of modems as they were running a bulletin board and an early ecommerce company. Apparently, there was always one family nominated to be the tech support,” she remembers.
That is one of the most profoundly interesting little tidbits of internet history I’ve ever seen
But....why did some Amish folks buy cyberia.com in 1994?
> "as they were running a bulletin board and an early ecommerce company."
Right...but I didn't realize they were allowed to do that.
“Allowed” is determined by The Elders of the community. Also, this does not go against the Amish ethos - they were not dependent on this for living. The day-to-day would have still been off-grid. Someone noticed they could make some extra money off The English and it was acceptable.
Ah, gotcha. Yea, it depends on the sect/group/'denomination'. Some are ultra-strict about electricity/tech, others have certain guidelines (i.e. keeping something like a landline in an entire different structure). It can vary even within the same county.
> It can vary even within the same county.
I went to a mennonite wedding once several years ago. One thing that I had no appreciation for before that was how splintered the overall community was. LOTS of tiny little "denominations" as you put it, eac based off of what seemed to this outsider as the most minor of differences. The wedding itself was a Big Deal in the larger community because it the bride & groom were from communities that normally were barely on speaking terms due to their faith differences.
I thought this was absolutely fascinating considering how the outside world barely understands the larger differences, like amish vs mennonite, and tends to lump the entirety of the Anabaptist community into a single bin.
It's always fascinated me how tenets of faith influence persistence of movements.
E.g. the far fewer adherents of religious sects that promote not having children vs those that promote not using birth control
The virality of various movements is often directly encoded in their scripture.