I was a high schooler at the time, but I remember complaining to our teacher in computer class about not being able to send an email to my cousin at another school in the next town over because the networks weren’t connected.

Teacher - “Just call him when you get home!”
Me - “that’s not the point…and you were just saying how cool it is that we can email our teachers…that we are actually seeing everyday and are a few feet down the hall! What’s the point of that!”

Glad we have standards now and hope AP will be one of them too