Because Teleprinters! Carriage return goes back to the start of the line, line feed goes to the next line. If you wanted “bold” on a teleprinter you just did a CR without the LF and printed the same text over the top again.

Public libraries are also very useful. Doesn’t mean they have to make money.

Or arguably it’s the issue with running then as an unregulated business to begin with. It’d almost be better if it was just run as a public/non-profit database service: here’s an anonymised, clinical, filterable list of other people who are looking for a relationship, and a safe way to connect with them. Like all other online services it’d be killed off by bots, trolls, and creeps, but still… If it’s in the public’s general interest for people to be in relationships?

Hard enough that it’s not worth it. Unless you’re on the board of SpaceX about to make an IPO. Above the cloud: Building data centres in space