Was in college back when the Internet was first forming.

Wasn't WWW yet, just newsgroups (alt.tasteless was as described!).

One of them, most likely soc.culture.esperanto (had to look it up, which I found here https://www.stason.org/TULARC/languages/esperanto/16-What-Esperanto-material-is-available-on-the-internet.html )

Anyway, it had a correspondence-course-type participation. I didn't have to pay anything.

Didn't get very far with it.

Back then it was just something interesting, and life ended up getting in the way.

Now? It was free language lessons, learning a language that is not your country's. A form of invasion!

Couched in nice terms of course, "an unambiguous language; no exceptions to learn, only rules; soon everybody will be wearing one of these" (vid related, starts at 2:50) – but still, invasion. Who paid for all those tutors' time? Was said to be volunteer, at the time; but how much is what it's said to be?

(Noting that the video won't post with timestamp, so it's https://youtu.be/k8MYNytmaI0?t=170 )