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Of course these were the days when computers were not connected to the network with permanent connections, so the whole shebang was based on dial-up services: if you copy a file it is copied to a spool and then sent onwards during the next time the system connects. This was extended by allowing to send files over multiple remote systems. So you might copy a file from computer A to computer C, and the file would travel first to computer B, then to C when B connected with that one.

A text file is a file, and could be sent to another computer.

An email is basically just a text file, and so emails could be sent. Forums (the usenet) were invented when someone started sending and distributing text files to public folders, and had them propagate on.

Even commands could be sent, allowing remote execution of tasks on other computers. Sure, it wasn't fast, especially as systems often only connected to the wider internet once a day and had to spread whatever transmission was send over the network hop-by-hop.

But it definitely started the first actual online communities. People all of a sudden were able to talk to other people on the other side of the country, or even across the ocean.

Even primitive #filesharing was possible, with some dial-up systems allowing public access to their file areas (often paid).

Users would send a command requesting a file listing the files on offer, and after receiving it requested the files they wanted.

This was all SLOW of course. But it was possible.

As fascinating as I find it, #uucp (and the modernized version #nncp) has limited actual use nowadays. For one, most machines nowadays are connected to the internet constantly, eschewing the need for delayed commands and file requests.

And it's not like many people still have dial-up modems around, or even the infrastructure to use them.

(who even has a landline still? and there seems to be an issue running modem signals over glass fiber as well)