[maxerickson]

An ftp server is clearly more akin to a spooky abandoned building.

[agroot12]

A more accurate analogy for an FTP server is a machine that sends you letters on demand.

It's like Shafer wrote a letter to their office asking for their list of patients, and lo and behold, they've sent him back an envelope containing that list.

[logfromblammo]

Or a private lending library that is technically open to the public, but no one ever goes there, because all the books are about dental drills.

[ohyes]

I think that's a gopher server