My father, now 70 years old, got stuck in Sicily with a broken car earlier this year. He had forgot his mobile phone home. He wasn't able to find a landline phone that he could use. Exasperated after trying several locations (bars, fast foods, etc asking for a phone call only to be denied) for 45 minutes, he decided to enter a vodafone store. They would not let him use _any_ phone because it was against the _policy_ (???). He asked if he could buy a phone and charge it, but was pretty complex (at least for him - mind you he had money and credit card with him). Maybe the fact that his accent betrays the fact that he's a foreigner had something to do with it...
Long story short, in 1970 you could get a phone call at the bar down the street and ring home if you were in trouble. People in the neighbourhoods were eager to help. In 2022, in Sicily, if you lose your mobile phone you're effectively _done_.
corrral 39 days ago [-]
Another case of an optional thing that enhanced experiences and made you more free becoming something you must have to do anything, so, removing some freedom after all.
See also: the automobile, at least as experienced in the US and similar countries.
[EDIT] and in both cases, the problem is the effect the new thing had on the environment around it. When tech- and progress-focused people can't figure out why some cultures/countries have "anti-progress" laws (France's protection of book stores, for instance), well, this is often part of why they do that.
pinko 39 days ago [-]
> When tech- and progress-focused people can't figure out why some cultures/countries have "anti-progress" laws (France's protection of book stores, for instance), well, this is often part of why they do that.
This is an enormously under-appreciated perspective here, thanks for pointing it out. What appears to be a foolish luddite is often someone with a thoughtful, long-term perspective based on hard-won experience.
andyjohnson0 39 days ago [-]
> When tech- and progress-focused people can't figure out why some cultures/countries have "anti-progress" laws (France's protection of book stores, for instance), well, this is often part of why they do that.
Kind of, but a bit different. Both are cases of unintended consequences, but one involves something that was deliberately made or set up a certain way, and the other involves a state of affairs that existed essentially by accident. This is how people get away with arguing that changes to the status quo, under shifting technology or the demands of business, are "natural", so efforts to preserve the status quo are "unnatural"—because the prior state wasn't made that way deliberately, and absent coordinated action it may be demolished by changes, even if most people would prefer to retain some or all of the prior state, at some shared cost.
totetsu 39 days ago [-]
I heard someone make that defence of a river rerouting that let a bunch of sea water in to a lake and killed all the fish and shell fish.
mitchdoogle 39 days ago [-]
Story seems to be more about people being jerks and not letting someone use a phone to make a quick call. Obviously there were tons of phones around but no one would let him use one.
It's rare but I have had someone ask to use my phone and I let them without any question
RobRivera 39 days ago [-]
i lived without a cell phone due to poverty sometime in the not too distant past and it made me develop certain new perspectives on tech and society
shard 38 days ago [-]
Along the lines of an optional thing removing freedom, I have had tremendous trouble waving down a cab sometimes because all the cabs that were coming to the area have been hailed through apps.
kisero 39 days ago [-]
I was literally listening to a podcast about this trade-off today by Andy Crouch, he’s the author of The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World
mwest217 39 days ago [-]
What was the podcast?
bananapear 39 days ago [-]
When it comes to automobiles and the US... are there any similar countries?
xyzzyz 39 days ago [-]
Most of Europe outside of large metros is the same as well.
skrtskrt 39 days ago [-]
There’s a difference between “it’s rural so things are spread out” and what we have in places like LA and Houston where major metro centers that could have been dense with good transit were purposely designed to be spread out and only able to be gotten around in in an automobile
It depends. For example there are many places that are too small to live without a car, but where you can do basic grocery shopping or kids can still go to school on foot or by bike. The spread is rarely comparable to the US.
barrkel 39 days ago [-]
Europe is not like the west coast of the US. Even urban areas are practically unnavigable by foot; everything is too spread out and only accessible by walking along heavily trafficked roads.
You'll want at least a bicycle in rural Europe, but you don't normally need a whole lot more.
yaomtc 39 days ago [-]
Canada
doubled112 39 days ago [-]
Definitely the suburbs around the major cities. 40 minute walk to the nearest store does seem unreasonable.
2 hours to bus to work or 15 minutes to drive.
na85 39 days ago [-]
Depends on where.
I'm in Victoria and don't need a car (have one, though).
vinay427 39 days ago [-]
That may be the point of the comparison, as I understood it, with urban areas that don't require cars more of an exception than a norm. This is certainly the case in the US as well (NYC metro, DC metro, SF metro, university towns, etc.).
na85 38 days ago [-]
Perhaps, but I'd say urban areas are the norm here. 80% of Canada lives along the Windsor-Quebec City corridor.
vinay427 37 days ago [-]
I'm aware. As for the urbanization, that's about on par with the US (82% for Canada, 83% for the US according to this metric [1]).
More to the point, most of those areas outside of Toronto and Montreal have middling-to-no usable public transport. For example, I was recently passing by Kingston, ON, which has buses in some parts of the city but they reach a fraction of the population in the Kingston metro area. The same goes for much of the Windsor-London corridor. The qualification I stated was "urban areas that don't require cars," not any urban area.
Plenty of places in the US you don’t need a car either by that definition.
39 days ago [-]
CryptoPunk 39 days ago [-]
gxs 39 days ago [-]
I traveled through Europe all through 2018.
The only bit of trouble I had throughout the entire trip was me trying to be a good Samaritan.
Someone approached me, lost, asking me for directions because they didn't have a phone. In my American naivete, I pulled out my phone and help them look for this fictitious restaurant they were supposedly looking for.
During the conversation, the person got close to me and before I knew it had pick pocketed 50 euros out of my pocket.
I'd still do my best to help in the future, but I can definitely understand why people are reluctant to help others in foreign countries.
steelframe 39 days ago [-]
I used to live in Italy. The first thing other Americans in my group taught me was to automatically assume that anyone and everyone around you is trying to scam or pickpocket you.
Did some 11-year-old kid just get on the bus? Is he wearing a fluffy jacket? That little shit is gonna try to pickpocket you, guaranteed. He likely has a razor blade and will slice open the bottom of your backpack while people are jostling each other around on the bus. Have nothing in your pockets, keep your back to the wall, and hold your backpack in your hands in front of you. Did a well-dressed stranger smile and strike up a conversation? They're a Jehovah's Witness, and they're going to try to manipulate you into letting them come into your house and indoctrinate you. Don't acknowledge their existence. Don't smile back, don't make eye contact. Zero engagement. Is some friendly guy at the Trevi Fountain offer you a fun-looking squishy balloon? It's the cheapest possible thing you can imagine, and he's going to start demanding 50x the value of the thing once you were naive enough to actually grab it when he shoved it at you. Is there a transient woman in the train station with a young child lurching at you while shoving the kid into your arms? She's going to start screaming that you're a kidnapper and then demand 50 euros from you to make your new "problem" go away. Did the ticket checker claim that your bus ticket wasn't stamped correctly? Nothing a 20-euro "fine," paid in cash directly to the ticket-checker, won't fix.
By the way, any and all of the above happened to an American in my group at one point or another -- sometimes several times -- in our years there.
robocat 39 days ago [-]
One weird trick: try not to appear American. American tourists are targeted because they tend to have valuables, also many cultures have a low opinion of the USA (anyone from the USA deserves behaviour X in response). I wish it weren’t like that, but it is hard to change stereotypes.
When travelling I might make out I am a hippy traveller type (low value target), or act like I’m from another country (e.g. Spanish tourists are known to be tight/tacaño in Morocco), and I try to avoid carrying or wearing anything that makes me stand out as a target (bumbag, camera, expensive accessories, high value branded clothes).
As a broad rule, you need to be most safety conscious in high density tourist areas. The only places I have been where I really knew I was unsafe were Rio (dangerous to locals too), and Nha Trang. In areas with very few tourists, I have usually been able to be fairly trusting, which leads to better experiences. Travelling as a hypersensitive victim is not fun: people sense your distrust and react poorly to it.
I am a New Zealander, and we tend to have a reputation for friendliness, which I try to project and maintain our reputation.
I have been obnoxiously drunk a few times when I have pretended to be Australian or American, sorry guys.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 39 days ago [-]
>> One weird trick: try not to appear American.
That would mean losing a hundred pounds. Easier said than done.
andrew_ 39 days ago [-]
You seem to have a real issue with Americans in general. It'd be just as wrong to say that all New Zealanders are mocked because of their accent, and they should try not to sound so silly. Do some people in other countries have beef with Americans? Sure, and I've run into plenty in Europe. But I've far and away run into more folks that simply don't care and are friendly, or are keen to talk about the U.S. Might be worth taking a hard look at your prejudice.
spqr0a1 39 days ago [-]
I had someone try the same grift to me in NYC but they went for my decoy pocket that only had used tissues.
gxs 39 days ago [-]
Yes, luckily I only had a small amount in my pocket and the rest in a money belt.
subpixel 39 days ago [-]
This is an interesting social breakdown for me.
I got lost running in a not-fancy and exclusive but quite nice area in an outer borough of NYC a couple years ago. I didn't have my phone.
Dressed like I was going to run a marathon, I asked people who I saw had phones if they would be so kind as to look up the directions to where I had come from.
Several different people, including one in a city agency truck, refused to open Google Maps for me. One claimed their smart phone didn't have a maps app and the others said things about data or they were in a rush.
I couldn't believe it and I wound up getting help from an old man who gave me audible directions that included so many steps I only found my way back by going in the right direction and slowly getting less lost.
willcipriano 39 days ago [-]
Did you ask them more like "Can you pull up Google maps?" Or "Do you know the way to 5th Street?"
The first one would make me question if you are trying to steal my phone or something, but I might pull out my phone to help you with the second.
tomjakubowski 39 days ago [-]
Good tip for would-be phone thieves: ask for directions, your mark may not think twice about pulling out their phone.
tomjakubowski 39 days ago [-]
> I only found my way back by going in the right direction and slowly getting less lost.
This works pretty reliably, at least in cities, by the way.
watersb 39 days ago [-]
Last night I dreamed I got lost and didn't have cell phone.
I went to the library, asked to use one of the computers they have for library patrons.
I was able to use Google Maps, but I couldn't get in touch with a friend who lived nearby, because -- I didn't have my phone. Everything set up with two-factor authentication, I couldn't get to email or send text message. Maybe just as well, on a public kiosk like that. But was distressing.
There's 2FA on my dreams.
gnopgnip 39 days ago [-]
They are replacing the payphones with LinkNYC kiosks that include a phone that makes free US calls
tstrimple 39 days ago [-]
Interesting. I hadn't seen these before (not a NY resident and very rarely a visitor).
Former NYC resident. Those things are everywhere in Manhattan and in surprisingly good condition most of the times.
tempest_ 38 days ago [-]
Those look really cool.
How do they work in practice? Do they get vandalized a lot? Do people actually charge their devices with them?
iamphilrae 38 days ago [-]
We have those in London too under the name InLink and are run by BT (the main telephone company here). BT used to offer free calls on them, but they had to stop because it was mostly being used by purchasers of drugs as an anonymous means of putting in an order. In terms of charging, they’re well used by homeless people.
That is sad. I don't carry my cell phone with me everywhere, and I have never had a problem finding some one willing to lend me their phone if I needed to make a call. I have never been to Sicily before though :)
steelframe 39 days ago [-]
Having lived a couple of years in Italy, I can attest that Italians are hard on the outside and chewy on the inside. They have built a hard outer shell to deal with all of the constant bullshit that they're awash in day-in and day-out. But once you're "in," you are *in*. The degree of mutual trust and goodwill among their in-groups would put most North American social groups, including and perhaps especially families, to shame.
daniel-cussen 38 days ago [-]
How did you get those asterisks? I get in not *in*.
Oh now I get *in*.
I'm in.
golemiprague 39 days ago [-]
I think it is similar in most Mediterranean countries, the US culture is derived from north west European
e1g 39 days ago [-]
For anyone else who might get stuck like this: hit up any public service place. Libraries, police/fire station, civic office, tourist info kiosk etc.
smelendez 39 days ago [-]
It's true and it's almost a vicious cycle: Because the cost of being without a phone is so high, people are unwilling to let strangers use their phones in case they run off with it (or drop it in a puddle).
digitallyfree 39 days ago [-]
Unless there's a kind stranger/public service avaliable, you're stuck if your phone fails for whatever reason. You could argue that there's no excuse to not go out with a spare charger and all, but I've had my handset just stop working while on the road. I have friends who have had their phone pickpocketed.
This also adds on an additional concern as places begin to forego say physical credit cards and IDs in favor of electronic ones that again live on your phone. If that phone is dead, you can't even buy a new one or get money from an ATM. Likely in such a future I'll need to have a redundant phone on me at all times just incase this happens.
vasco 39 days ago [-]
You didn't mention it but I'm guessing he got back and told you the story so you aren't effectively done, it's just more of a hassle if you're unwilling to ask a passing stranger.
grecy 39 days ago [-]
In Australia they just made all payphones free for all calls to anywhere in Australia (inc to cell phones). It's great.
isatty 39 days ago [-]
Did he ask a stranger? When I got locked out of my house even the fedex driver who happened to be there let me use his phone to call someone.
BrianOnHN 39 days ago [-]
I would think that this is neighborhood-dependent.
prmoustache 39 days ago [-]
Unless you look like a crackhead or beggar, anyone would lend his phone for a few seconds/minutes.
DharmaPolice 39 days ago [-]
I assume it's a global thing but in London there is a category of beggar that doesn't really look like a beggar. They usually have a story about their car running out of petrol or losing their train ticket. I've been approached by the same guy two days running telling me that he just lost his train ticket a few minutes before (what an unlucky guy).
My point is that in cities you evolve an attitude that pretty much anyone who walks up to you with a sob story is likely to be at best a beggar and at worst a thief/scammer. I think you could get someone to make a call on your behalf but actually handing you their phone (even for a moment) - that might be less common than you think.
llanowarelves 39 days ago [-]
Also our phones are >= $1000 devices. How are we supposed to trust handing that to just anyone?
balaji1 39 days ago [-]
I have faced this before - A stranger dialed the number I wanted to call, put it on speaker and let me speak to my friend.
schoen 39 days ago [-]
I did this recently for a homeless woman on the street. In my case I was more concerned about COVID risk than the risk of her stealing my phone (as I had a bicycle and she didn't, and she looked tired and emaciated and unlikely to be able to harm me).
As a result, I overheard her entire long desperate attempt to persuade her mother to give her another other other other last chance. :-( :-( :-(
llanowarelves 39 days ago [-]
Good idea. Hadn't even thought of that since the question is usually "can I borrow your phone" which implies handing it over.
prmoustache 39 days ago [-]
Not true.
Most people aren't using and can't afford the flagship models. I personnally have never bought a smartphone more than 180€ and I know a lot of people doing the same thing.
llanowarelves 39 days ago [-]
Do they have monthly payments for phones in Europe, or is it all just one lump-sum payment?
Most people I know have flagship phones and the ability to make many smaller payments may have something to do with that.
prmoustache 37 days ago [-]
Monthly payments exist and some people use them to pay for a flagship phone but most people understand this is just diguised credit and they'd rather have a cheaper subscription.
Also I've seen people do that drop/lose/get their expensive phone stolen and then pay for almost 2 years for a device they don't use. The replacement is usually a lot cheaper and they realize their life is not that different with a cheaper smartphone and don't repeat the experience unless they are social status show offs.
californical 39 days ago [-]
I definitely wouldn’t, at least not without lots of convincing. Probably I’d call someone for you though.
Access to all of my personal info, my password manager, etc. If someone turned and ran with my phone, it would give me days worth of hassle to replace and recover things like canceling my SIM card, buying a new one, changing 2FA, trying to remotely wipe it, maybe provide info to police.
I hate how dependent I am on this little rectangle but it’s kind of just reality these days to have so much of our lives closely tied to it
prmoustache 39 days ago [-]
My password manager is locked by default but I have a second android profile that I switch to when I hand out my phone to someone else. I imagine iOS has a similar feature. I don't want my kids or a friend ruin my browser history.
Last time I dropped my phone in the sea, I got a new sim card the next day from my operator, reactivating all the 2FA shit isn't too complicated as long as you keep the same number. It was annoying but 99% was taken care of as soon as I had the sim card.
The only thing that took several days was access to a bank account I have open in a remote country as I hadn't given them my latest address and they had to do back to back verifications, shipping me codes then calling me to verify the same person who was on the phone was living in the place he pretended to live, then sending me back 2 different letters one with a new password, one with a code to activate 2FA.
boplicity 39 days ago [-]
That's a huge problem. Payphones don't have biases. As long as you have enough money, they just work.
People have many, many biases. (For example, against homeless, and those who are often in most need of help.)
The reality of depending on other people is that you're dependent on their flaws. This works out for most people, but certainly does not for many of those who are marginalized.
pessimizer 39 days ago [-]
> As long as you have enough money, they just work.
Even if you didn't you would just call collect.
the_only_law 39 days ago [-]
Tbh I’ve let alcoholics on the street use my phone, they’re usually too wasted to make a run with it.
People think I’m crazy for it though.
prmoustache 39 days ago [-]
I also handed out my phone to a drunk homeless guy who wanted to call a friend so that he can lend him money to go back to his country of origin after an unsuccessful attempt to start a new life here.
okamiueru 39 days ago [-]
My immediate thought was "surely, if you talked to any police officer, if not at the station, they would help out? And if not, any library or other public service?"
nrmitchi 39 days ago [-]
I have literally tried exactly this before, and apparently my not having a phone to contact anyone wasn’t actually the officers problem.
z3t4 39 days ago [-]
In what city ?
s5300 39 days ago [-]
dQw4w9WgXcQ 39 days ago [-]
When I feel that dramatic I usually need to get lunch, but you might have other reasons.
georgyo 39 days ago [-]
If you don't have your phone, how do you know where the nearest public service is, especially in a foreign land.
koolba 39 days ago [-]
I’m old enough to remember asking people for directions.
If you're not aware, many people are assholes, and the story that you're reading is about an instance where someone was finding that everyone around them was being an asshole, that means it's less than likely that they would have stopped to give them directions.
exhilaration 39 days ago [-]
If you're not aware, many people are assholes
Oh come on, most people are awesome. People LOVE to help, it empowers them, makes them feel good. When you look at books with advice about building relationships and friendships, you'll almost always find suggestions to ASK people you want to get closer to for help.
Teever 39 days ago [-]
I don't feel like having a semantic argument over the different between many and most.
The world is full of many lovely, caring people, but that does little to help a person when they happen to run into a bunch of assholes.
It is very feasible that a person travelling to another country could have a negative experience with everyone they meet due to racism or xenophobia, or whatever and that this would lead to a situation where even people on the street show them nothing but scorn.
Imagine a Ukrainian asking for the nearest police station in Russia right now.
Or someone wearing a thin blue line asking for directions at a stereotypical leftist college campus.
signatoremo 39 days ago [-]
> Imagine a Ukrainian asking for the nearest police station in Russia right now.
> Or someone wearing a thin blue line asking for directions at a stereotypical leftist college campus.
I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if in either case the person who is lost gets the help they need.
The world is full of assholes, but they are the minority compared to the majority of helpful people, especially when it comes to simple things such as direction. Speak the local language helps of course.
Teever 39 days ago [-]
> I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if in either case the person who is lost gets the help they need.
Every single time?
Like you're saying that there's absolutely no chance that this could happen in these situations, or in any situations, which makes no sense given that statistically this kind of shit happens every day to someone.
At almost any given moment someone is being told to fuck off because the asked a stranger for directions.
Have you never had this happen to you?
dzhiurgis 39 days ago [-]
orbital-decay 38 days ago [-]
> Imagine a Ukrainian asking for the nearest police station in Russia right now.
Not sure what you expect to happen. There won't be any way to tell the difference, and even if there was nobody would care. In Moscow on a busy street, you'll probably be ignored for some time until someone helps you, not just because they are assholes there, but simply because most people aren't locals; in most sub-1M cities, there will be plenty of people willing to help.
dzhiurgis 39 days ago [-]
I once heard some rich youtubers say - "giving feels so good it almost feels selfish" which I kind agree with, especially once you have your needs covered (most of HN).
seoaeu 39 days ago [-]
OP is literally a story about someone asking strangers for directions and being given the cold shoulder. You proposal is to… ask those same unhelpful strangers directions to a different destination instead?
cpitman 39 days ago [-]
This also assumes you feel safe talking to police in the first place.
donthellbanme 39 days ago [-]
rc_mob 39 days ago [-]
Not just Sicily, a similar scenario happened to me in Salt Lake City UT. People are strangely asshole about letting someone in need use their cell phone.
zippergz 39 days ago [-]
It's much more strange to me that people WOULD let strangers use their cell phone. Back when it was just a phone, sure. But now it's my wallet with all of my credit cards and banking loaded on it, it has all of my passwords and all of my OTP apps and codes, it has the ability to unlock doors in my house (and for some people to open and start their car) it contains all of the contact information for everyone I know, it effectively has every email I've ever sent or received and every picture I have ever taken or been sent, it has access to publish content as me on trusted social media profiles. Yes, obviously all of this should be protected by much more than just physical security. But we all know that software locks can almost always be broken if you're in possession of the physical device.
I happily help strangers when I can, but I'm not going to hand over the keys to my entire life, on the most fragile and expensive object I probably have on my person.
seoaeu 39 days ago [-]
The biggest problem is just the value of the phone. There’s just way too much risk handing a stranger a $500-1000 object that they could just run away with!
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 39 days ago [-]
And you can have an NFC device on you to take money from the phone once it's unlocked!
swader999 39 days ago [-]
I would just call for them and let them use speaker phone.
easrng 39 days ago [-]
On Android you can add alternate users, I have one that only has the phone app installed specifically in case I ever need to let someone use it.
sophacles 39 days ago [-]
Its not at all strange that you cannot use my device that has access to some really important personal info on it. It's rude for me to hover over you while you are talking on the phone so I can make sure you aren't snooping through my messages, email, etc, and I'm not about to let you use a device that has access to those unsupervised.
GaylordTuring 39 days ago [-]
Exactly my thought as well. If the phone only was just that, a phone, I would happily lend it out to strangers all the time (at least if it looked like they didn't have the stamina to outrun me :P).
bagels 39 days ago [-]
There's too much risk to hand a stranger your cell phone, unfortunately. They can steal the phone, call some high cost number, venmo themselves money, who knows what else.
throwaway675309 39 days ago [-]
I think it depends on how you phrase it, there's a big difference to me between asking somebody to place a call on behalf of you on speakerphone, versus asking them to physically handover an unlocked smart phone.
smelendez 39 days ago [-]
I'm very reluctant when people ask me for the reasons others have said.
Not saying you didn't do this but I'm much more likely to help when someone comes up with a clear and concise statement of the problem and a minimally intrusive solution ("hey, my phone is dead and my wife has the charger, could you call the Hilton on speaker and ask for Room 123?" or even "could I log in to my Facebook for a second and send a message to my friend saying I don't have my phone but I'll be at Starbucks, you can hold the phone?")
FerociousTimes 39 days ago [-]
Did he offer to pay strangers on the street or business staff for the phone calls he was intending to make from their mobile phone?
dzhiurgis 39 days ago [-]
In NZ if you stop at side of the road or open your hood in parking lot someone will offer help within minutes.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 39 days ago [-]
My gf took away my phone because I was reading HN too much in the club.
I went home alone without a phone. Not a single cab would stop for me on the street, they all just take Uber orders now. Walked 5 miles in the freezing cold.
adolph 39 days ago [-]
Did the cell phone replace the towel?
balaji1 39 days ago [-]
no more hardline exits...
california2077 39 days ago [-]
If you both loose your cellphone and lack social skills to ask literally anyone else to lend you theirs, then I guess you're in trouble. But it works out for the rest of us, so the cost to some rare individuals is worth the benefit to the rest of the society. I for one never lost a cell phone in my life.
YeBanKo 39 days ago [-]
Payphone seems to be like public toilets: you don't want to use one, when you have to, you are glad they are there.
3-4 years ago I got stuck in San Francisco with a dead cellphone and broken car. I remembered my spouse's number, I don't remember of I forgot my wallet somewhere or it wasn't accepting cards, but I do remember asking a random woman on the street for few coins. Anyway, I was able to call and even to get a call back in few minutes.
It can be a public safety matter, hopefully no-one needs it, but when one does, can be for a good reason.
frosted-flakes 39 days ago [-]
For what it's worth, you don't need coins to use payphones. You can usually just call collect. I've done it once about a decade ago, before I had a cell phone.
Is should also be noted that the Link kiosks they've been replacing them with have phone functionality ... it's free even. I've used them once when my cellphone died. They don't have handsets, so everyone around can hear both sides of the conversation, but in a pinch they're useful. And let's be honest, free > private in this situation. I don't know the last time I was walking around with enough quarters to use a payphone.
Now, the Link kiosks are 99.9% about advertising, with just enough of a public service to justify this base monetization of the commons. On the whole, I'm not a fan. I went to a tech talk at the company behind them (in a swanky new tower in the Hudson yards) and their sizzle/promo reel running on a loop really made me sick.
enobrev 39 days ago [-]
> They don't have handsets, so everyone around can hear both sides of the conversation
If you were in NYC in the early 2000s, you'd generally have one person on every train car on a nextel chirp phone having a conversation for everyone to enjoy.
mike22 37 days ago [-]
Ah, iDEN has gone the way of floppy disks. My old Moto i955 for Boost Mobile (MVNO of Nextel, later carried along with Sprint on CDMA) is a quite heavy and rocky solid paperweight.
IMSAI8080 39 days ago [-]
They were doing something similar in London for a while. They'd install a large advert screen with a phone attached and say it was a payphone because the local planning rules made it difficult to oppose installation of a payphone. The calls were actually free.
71a54xd 39 days ago [-]
Well yeah, there are tons of empty "booths" just without phones. They're commonly used by drug dealers as stash points / occupied by homeless. Admittedly, while living in NYC I'd use them to duck out of the rain on occasion :)
kempbellt 39 days ago [-]
When I lived in NYC, I frequently saw these things being used as urinals by homeless people.
I'd rather just walk in the rain.
yupper32 39 days ago [-]
I like the word "admittedly" there because I read it as it's a dirty little secret of yours, haha.
VWWHFSfQ 39 days ago [-]
There are payphones in the stations still. They were talking about on the surface sidewalks.
chimeracoder 39 days ago [-]
> There are payphones in the stations still. They were talking about on the surface sidewalks.
There are at least four other payphones on sidewalks in the UWS.
Are there any situations where it would be desirable to keep some payphones around? Potentially in some sort of natural disaster where cell towers get knocked down, or at least reduced in capacity to the point where it's no longer possible to reliably make calls?
There was a situation in Canada a year or two ago where one of our two main wireless providers rolled out a bad firmware update to all of their transmitters at the same time and had a system wide outage for nearly nine hours, I could imagine a need for payphones if something like that were to happen in NYC.
iancmceachern 39 days ago [-]
Yes. I worked in the "street furniture" industry. It used to me Cemusa and another company who's name slips mind.
This was decades ago, but still in an Era when people were asking why pay phones still exist. It's the ad revenue.
Companies like Cemusa give cities like NYC big money (dozens or hundreds of millions) to buy the right to provide the city with " street furniture" for free, in exchange for the right to sell the ad revenue placed on those pieces of street furniture. This includes pay phones, bus stop shelters, benches, news stands, etc.
This dynamic is what caused NYC payphones to exist far beyond their useful life as pay phones.
>It used to me Cemusa and another company who's name slips mind.
JCDecaux is the other one - they actually bought Cemusa a few years ago.
ddeck 39 days ago [-]
Definitely. Telstra in Australia recently made all their (15000) payphones free and the CEO specifically called out bushfires and cyclones (hurricanes) as events that have brought the mobile network down:
About 11m calls were made across Telstra pay phones in the past year, including 230,000 calls to critical services such as triple zero and Lifeline.
The Telstra chief executive, Andrew Penn, said pay phones were a vital lifeline, particularly for the homeless and people escaping an unsafe situation.
“I have been moved seeing firsthand queues of people waiting in line to use a payphone to tell their family and friends they’re safe after a bushfire, a cyclone or some other natural disaster has taken the mobile network down,” he said.[1]
I believe the existence/number of payphones is mandated by the federal government.
Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) was the weakest link in the land lines. Since so much traffic has moved off onto wireless I would think there's a lot of reason to use landlines as a reliable emergency line when the towers are overloaded or down. Landlines were reliable for power outages since the power was supplied separately by the phone company and the lines were buried in the ground.
_jal 39 days ago [-]
> landlines as a reliable emergency line
Unfortunately, carriers are letting POTS rot.
It is arguably unreliable now in some places. My grandmother's land line (semi-rural Ohio) goes out every few months and it usually takes a week or so for them to fix it. When we talked to them at one point, they suggested she get a cell phone.
Just another example of how planning for quarterly reports causes massive value destruction.
EvanAnderson 39 days ago [-]
Came here to say the same thing. Funnily enough I'm in semi-rural Ohio. I see POTS infrastructure all over the place being neglected. Boxes are open to the elements. Spliced cables are just laying out on the ground.
I can only imagine the ghosts of old-school telco linemen rolling in their graves over this.
I keep meaning to do a deep-dive into public utility regulation here to see if the incumbent telcos are required to maintain that infrastructure. I'd actually have fun going out and photographing/geotagging damaged infrastructure if a court would actually compel the telco to do something about it.
Analemma_ 39 days ago [-]
There are plenty of examples of companies shooting themselves in the foot by only looking at the short term, but this doesn’t seem like one of them. It’s not like investment in POTS is going to pay off in the long run: rural America is depopulating, most households are becoming cellphone only, etc. There’s no positive ROI for POTS out in the countryside no matter what time horizon you look at.
The actual fix here is that we have to take a hard look and really decide if this is something worth keeping around. If it is, it needs massive ongoing subsidies. The market alone won’t fix it, because the economics simply aren’t there.
kevin_thibedeau 39 days ago [-]
This isn't just a rural problem. I live in a city that is home base to a major regional telco. They wouldn't deploy fiber and let their copper rot. I had 4Mb DSL some years back that went bad so I was moved to a new pair that could only manage 2Mb despite being relatively close to the CO. These companies DGAF.
39 days ago [-]
KerrAvon 39 days ago [-]
Telcos have been given free resources from the government for decades to maintain rural infrastructure. ROI never entered into in the first place.
39 days ago [-]
39 days ago [-]
rhino369 39 days ago [-]
Even if it were beneficial, nobody will pay to up keep them. And even if they did, without incentive to make sure they actually work, I suspect they'd fall into disrepair anyway since it wouldn't be a priority.
Aperocky 39 days ago [-]
Except they (more specifically, ads) pay for themselves.
bogomipz 39 days ago [-]
This just just supports the OPs point though. They may have paid for themselves but whomever was collecting that money(Titan mostly) was not maintaining the condition of the phones. The phone were almost always in disgusting and deplorable condition.
bombcar 39 days ago [-]
The call boxes alongside US highways are starting to disappear also - so many people have cell phones and most highways are patrolled at least once a day, so the cost of keeping them working is not worth it as much.
cwwc 39 days ago [-]
Interestingly — these call boxes are still prevalent along highways (along with these odd S.0.S. Pull offs every km/ half km or so) throughout much of northern Italy (and if my memory serves.. also in Germany, as of this past fall).
I think there may be a a divide between toll/non toll roads tho — curious if anyone knows why this is.
silisili 39 days ago [-]
Wow... I'd actually forgotten these even ever existed until I read this comment, so I guess you're right... What a blast from the past!
JJMcJ 39 days ago [-]
This is 100% gone for urban freeways in California.
asdff 39 days ago [-]
They have them on the freeways in LA
JJMcJ 39 days ago [-]
Hmm, didn't notice. In Bay Area, definitely gone.
gs17 39 days ago [-]
Or just having your phone die and needing to call someone for a ride. Of course, then you need their number memorized, which is less common now.
lizknope 39 days ago [-]
I keep a small printout in my wallet with 20 phone numbers just for that situation.
Minor49er 39 days ago [-]
It was common for phone booths to have copies of the yellow and white pages, though it was also common for people to just go in and tear up the pages
stevenwoo 39 days ago [-]
I live near some mountainous rural terrain. There is no cell coverage in large swaths of valleys so many of the county and state parks have payphones to ensure phone service.
johannes1234321 39 days ago [-]
pay phones can be useful (or be misused) for anonymous communication. Say as a whistleblower.
They also can be helpful when your mobile's battery runs out.
coding123 39 days ago [-]
Wow I must be ancient. I remember a time when you could ask a fellow citizen if you can borrow their phone for a minute. I guess that's called a mugging now.
jstummbillig 39 days ago [-]
A time where you'd borrow a phone from a stranger "for anonymous communication, say as a whistleblower" rates not as ancient but as fictional.
godshatter 39 days ago [-]
I wonder how prevalent "turning someone in for a crime anonymously" was before the pay phones disappeared. Now I'm guessing it's damned near impossible.
wlesieutre 39 days ago [-]
That’s now called “I’d say no because of the scam where they use a premium number and bill you for a very expensive phone call.” If somebody’s phone is dead they can borrow my battery pack.
Swizec 39 days ago [-]
I did this recently after a marathon! It took me 10 minutes to remember my girlfriend’s phone number
And I had to text. Scam calls have made it far too unlikely that anyone picks up for an unknown number
Which, if they are cellular based don't solve for the problem, but I suspect some are hardwired?
sethhochberg 39 days ago [-]
They have fiber backhaul since they are high-volume public wifi access points. I'd bet the phone tablet on the front is VoIP.
ghaff 39 days ago [-]
One problem is that, if you just keep and maintain "some" payphones, there probably won't be nearly enough to be useful if the cellular infrastructure is out for some reason.
webmobdev 39 days ago [-]
That's why I still keep a landline, though the family rarely uses it. It so happened that my family was debating why we need a landline when each of us has one or two mobile connections. Co-incidentally, the next day a major city got flooded. Nearly all the cell towers in the flooded area got knocked out because the generators / UPS of the towers all conked out. Only the wired landlines worked. We all voted to keep the landline. (It also turned out to be a blessing because in some forms of the US embassy, landline is a required field).
supertrope 39 days ago [-]
On September 11th 2001 people lined up to use payphones because the cellular networks were overloaded.
firstcommentyo 39 days ago [-]
Though I really like the idea of having some backup infrastructure already for those discussed simple cases like (top comment for example): car broke down and you..
.. forgot your mobile
.. out of battery
.. out of "credit" (in case of prepaid)
.. cuz you got robbed
.. cuz you got raped....(!)
.. cuz you lost your fingertips and can't operate a touch display anymore..
.. possibilties are hopefully rare but endless but you're just in whatever emergency at 3 am and really need a to make a call!
But just for curiosity, whom/where you wanna call in 2022++ in case of overloaded networks like Sep. 11th in 2001. At least I didn't even "own" (actually set-up) my landline anymore.
satsuma 39 days ago [-]
were cell phones that common in 2001? i thought payphones were still more commonly used at that point
supertrope 39 days ago [-]
No. They were very expensive because the network had minuscule capacity compared with today. I remember having a consumer plan with a 400 minute per month quota and calls after 9 p.m. were free. Even with those tight limits you'd sometimes place a call and hear a switch message "All circuits are busy."
epc 39 days ago [-]
Yes, for average business people in Lower Manhattan, New York City.
Not unusual for adults to have them, uncommon for students and children to have them.
Markoff 38 days ago [-]
sounds like BS, I was teenager in quite poor European country, in 1998-1999 I was one of the first two people in my class to have mobile (I've inherited Philips Fizz from father, my rich classmate had some Nokia), by 2001 when I served in military I was switching already two phones per year (I remember it because I traded one of the phones (Siemens) just during the leave in city where were my barracks), in 2001 literally every adult in poor European country except old seniors had already phone and definitely vast majority of teenage students
I learned about attacks when visiting netcafe (just some irrelevant foreign news) and then guys in my platoon were listening to radio and even our local TV channel strangely aired CNN footage instead south American telenovela guys watched for pretty girls. we had talk in evening with highest captain or mayor in our barracks in evening, we doubled our shifts to protect installations (guys were happy, at least they had someone to talk to legally during guarding) plus nearby nuclear power plant, first night of 9/11 I spent with unplanned night shift on the fax waiting for instructions from HQ and later was forced to guard as well despite as bureaucrat I should be pretty much exempted from it
epc 35 days ago [-]
In 2001 the US was at about 45 cell phones per 100 adults according to the ITU and statista.com (which may be the same dataset). Some other sites put it at 38% but unclear if total population or just US adults.
Regardless, hardly ubiquitous.
Markoff 35 days ago [-]
according this roughly 50% of European population had phone including seniors and children, so it pretty much confirms what I said that all adults except old people had phone including plenty of teenagers, Americas way behind Europe, but I guess US avg would be much higher than South America
It saddens me that you can't think of a use for a communication device that doesn't track your every move in such detail that would make omniscient deities jealous.
the_only_law 39 days ago [-]
I had an issue a while back where my mobile service got cut off and in the most well thought out support system I’ve seen, I needed to make a phone call to resolve it.
At first I couldn’t find anyone who’d allow me to make a call real quick. Luckily the phone worked fine and I still had wifi and was able to use Google voice, but if pay phones were still a thing I may have reached for one.
dheera 39 days ago [-]
There are emergency phones all over school campuses these days, that only dial emergency service.
I do believe cell towers have ways to prioritize emergency number calls if their capacity is reduced, but I'm not sure of the details.
neartheplain 39 days ago [-]
Are those emergency telephones, or the "press big button, speak into mic" public safety call posts? Can't order a pizza or call a cab on the latter I'm afraid.
lizknope 39 days ago [-]
I'm sure some college kids have tried to use it and classify it as a "pizza emergency"
39 days ago [-]
V__ 39 days ago [-]
How else are you supposed to get the next numbers from the machine?
JaggerJo 39 days ago [-]
yup - we definitely need to keep them. Otherwise Samaritan might win.
> The LinkNYC buildout halted in 2018, with the majority of kiosks installed in relatively plugged-in Manhattan ... The company wound up unable to make its payments to the city, racking up a bill of $60 million. By 2019, the company faced bankruptcy ... The reboot of LinkNYC will add fifth-generation cellular network technology, on top of existing features like free Wi-Fi, a 911 button and USB chargers. Multiple telecom companies are in talks to house their 5G equipment in compartments in the upper chambers of the poles, Cannon said.
ubermonkey 39 days ago [-]
I hadn't thought about pay phones in a long time until early in the pandemic, when I was listening to the Phoebe Bridgers() song "Kyoto" that includes they lyrics
"You called me from a payphone /
They still got payphones /
it cost a dollar a minute"
and I realized "holy shit, when was the last time I saw a pay phone?" And I don't know the answer to that question. It might* be a weird one I saw at the end of a bar in a remote pub in Northumberland in the summer of 2019, in an area with dodgy cell service. I have NO idea when I last saw a real Ma Bell style pay phone anywhere.
(* Like most middle-aged men, I'm a fan. You laugh (I assume), but there was a definite non-parent adult contingent at her concert here last weekend. It seems weird for a south-of-30 songwriter tied very much to a certain sort of Millennial life to resonate so much outside the most obvious core demographic, but here we are.)
matthewfcarlson 39 days ago [-]
Or it could just be that Phoebe Bridgers has great music that everyone can enjoy :)
ubermonkey 39 days ago [-]
Obviously, I don't dispute this.
But for me, in a pre-subscription service world, I doubt I would've found her. What marketing formation for her that existed was kinda lean, and I don't automatically assume that every songwriter is gonna resonate with me. I mostly assume that people far removed from me probably WON'T, especially if the gap is huge. Bridgers is young enough to be my kid, and not in a cheeky "only if I knocked up a girl in high school" way. She's from a part of the country far from me, and works in a style that isn't immediately assumed to be universal.
And yet, here I am.
I'm kinda fascinated by issues around music discovery, and how they changed in my lifetime. I'm 52. My music-listening life probably started at 10 or 12, so let's just say 12 so it's a nice round 40 years ago.
Back then, you were a prisoner of what got played on the radio, but it was also SUPER weird for "adults" -- people my parents' age, typically born immediately before, during, or immediately after WWII -- to listen to popular music at all, and so there wasn't really any in the house. My parents didn't even own a stereo.
We had two "top 40" stations in town, but the playlists were not very different (at least they WERE locally programmed, unlike today). Precious little pop music was on TV; unlike today, when bands sometimes get huge exposure by having a song played in a popular show, it just didn't happen for whatever reason back then. (I suspect rights issues and the lack of cross-ownership between TV networks and music firms.)
And, obviously, there was no online music.
The world of pop music was also MUCH smaller. There was, for one thing, only about 20 years of the form -- probably less. I usually mark the start of modern pop music to 1966, but reasonable people can disagree on the specifics. The point is that the genesis point was sometime in the mid 60s, and we're talking about the early to mid 80s. It was simpler, with fewer subgenres, and next to nothing happening that wasn't part of the big-record-label A&R process. Recording was expensive and required lots of expertise. (Another act that's huge now, Billie Eilish, absolutely wouldn't have happened the way she's happened -- ie, recording her debuts in her childhood bedroom with only her brother as a collaborator. The rise of home recording tech is a whole OTHER world of miracles and wonders.)
And, finally, if you wanted to give a new act a try, you pretty much had to buy the record, so it cost money to discover.
Contrast that with now. I found Bridgers because I read a profile of her in the New Yorker (in my capacity as a white upper-middle-class tote-bag-owning urban liberal).
It was interesting partly because it was the first piece of "COVID-era" journalism I read. The New Yorker, if you're not familiar, is rightly famous for continuing to do the sort of long-form articles that used to be much more common, including in-depth profiles of interesting people. Sometimes they're famous, sometimes they're clearly on their way to being famous (like Bridgers) and sometimes they're scientists or something who will never be household names but who are still doing something very cool.
Usually these involve a writer hanging out with the person for several days over several weeks to kinda get to know them & etc, but obviously with COVID that didn't happen, and the way they managed it was interesting to me at the time (lots of Facetime). And it was after reading that that I realized I could just "hey Siri" some Bridgers for no additional incremental cost, and then I found myself playing "Punisher" over and over in a way I almost never have with a record since I was in my 20s.
There's something really interesting about how this worked to me. It's so VASTLY different than the world of music was when I was growing up that I'm fascinated by it, and by the "odd" (at least superficially) things that come out of it, like middle aged people finding and loving an act that, 30 years ago, probably wouldn't have been on their radar AT ALL because of her age, gender, and the sort of inevitable pigeonholing that labels would've done.
gwbas1c 39 days ago [-]
When I was in high school, the payphone (in the school) ate my quarter.
I called the operator and told them. I didn't care about the money, I just wanted a working phone.
A few weeks later I got a check in the mail for $0.25. It was on old letterhead from the telephone company's old name.
kdtsh 39 days ago [-]
In Australia, Telstra (formerly publicly owned telephony company) has a regulatory obligation as the primary service provider to maintain pay phones which are reasonably accessible to everyone in the country. As of August 2021 they are free for domestic calls.
From the outside it looks totally backward to get rid of pay phones. You don’t use them until you need them. It costs little to maintain them and on balance it is a social good.
tommywiseausmom 39 days ago [-]
I talked to a guy who used to have hundreds of them across Florida in the 90s and made bank. He said he's down to six. Know where they are? In-patient drug rehab facilities. They take away your phone, and people are wary to try to make drug deals on landlines. The places where most of them still exist, however, are prisons and jails.
JoeAltmaier 39 days ago [-]
"LinkNYC kiosks also provide a social services directory, free phone calls within the U.S., ..."
Daniel_sk 39 days ago [-]
"This content is not available in your country/region."
EDIT: I was curious if they removed it in the last few days so I went out and took a picture: https://imgur.com/a/dQdSEzQ
Has a dial tone and everything. But maybe this is one of the private ones the article mentions?
SN76477 39 days ago [-]
Escaping the matrix becomes harder every year.
actionablefiber 39 days ago [-]
Nah, you can still do it via the LinkNYC terminals which let you place calls.
That said, it's vanishingly rare that I actually see anyone using them to make calls, and it looks kind of silly when you do use them because you need to plug headphones into the jack. Their primary utility is for device charging and free Wi-Fi.
rob74 39 days ago [-]
- Use your personal device to connect to LinkNYC’s super fast, free Wi-Fi
- Access city services, maps and directions from the tablet
- Make free phone calls to anywhere in the U.S. using the tablet or the tactile keypad and microphone. Plug in your personal headphones for more privacy.
- Use the dedicated red 911 button in the event of an emergency
- Charge your device in a power-only USB port
[...]
Sounds cool! Wish we had terminals like these in Germany. Here, they just remove the pay phones, period.
actionablefiber 39 days ago [-]
I imagine that these could be useful to tourists who don't have a local phone plan, and the free Wi-Fi / USB charging / scrolling information bulletins are definitely useful, but I feel like this program came about 5-10 years too late for them to really shine now that a lot of people have smartphones with generous/unlimited data plans and don't necessarily need a kiosk for points 1-4.
From 2010-2017 or so, unlimited data plans were some combination of rare/slow/expensive, and especially in the early 2010s smartphones had a lot less penetration. I imagine these terminals would have been life-savers back then.
bogomipz 39 days ago [-]
But this limited utility comes at a cost of being inundated by billboards. In NYC there is often 4 per single block - 2 on each side of the street. I don't believe there was a 1 for 1 replacement with the old kiosks, they seem to be far more pervasive than pay phones ever were. There's also a 5G version being introduced that is far more obtrusive than the original design. See pages 15, 16 and and 37 here:
- monolithic eyesores that take up precious sidewalk space
- yet another bright display running advertisements 24/7
- charging stations for the homeless to use and loiter around
Poor execution of a good idea. I smile whenever I walk by one that has been vandalized.
colejohnson66 39 days ago [-]
> monolithic eyesores that take up precious sidewalk space
To be fair, so were the pay phones they replaced. NYC just doesn't have enough sidewalk space in a lot of areas.
tentacleuno 39 days ago [-]
> - charging stations for the homeless to use
Isn't that a good thing?
Nextgrid 39 days ago [-]
The problem is that those are ultimately devices whose purpose is to feed the cancer that is called advertising, while old payphones merely wanted a quarter.
> We may share Technical Information that is unassociated with you and your device:
> With analytics, search engine, or other service providers that help us improve the Services;
> To advertisers and advertising networks to select and serve relevant advertisements.
They're useless for anything besides 911 functionality. I would definitely not recommend connecting to its Wi-Fi service without a VPN and spoofed, one-time MAC address.
colejohnson66 39 days ago [-]
> whose purpose is to feed the cancer that is called advertising
Pay phones were the same way. The quarter payment was just on top of the money from advertisements.
Nextgrid 39 days ago [-]
That was just generic display advertising targeted by location and market research.
This one collects data about your usage of the device (and the mere fact that you were there at a certain time) and then shares it with lots of "partners" so they can refine the profile they have on you even further.
bogomipz 39 days ago [-]
Well, when the phones were still operated by the regional Bells there was no advertising except for the logo of the phone company. The promotional advertising came only after the incumbents sold the kiosk business to Titan et al.
pimlottc 39 days ago [-]
It seems like a pretty false equivalence to me. Who wants to talk to someone on speaker in the middle of a public street? Or remember to bring headphones with them in case they need to make a call? I would be very surprised if they were ever used to make calls outside of very rare emergency situations.
actionablefiber 39 days ago [-]
Well, it's not a "false equivalence" per se - the city literally installed the LinkNYC terminals right where the payphones used to be and considers them to be a successor to them - but I agree that the user experience of placing a call with the terminals is pretty bad. You don't get privacy, you (usually) have nowhere to sit, and if you're standing right in front of the terminal then you've got people constantly walking past you.
Frankly, I wasn't making any calls on the old payphones either, and it's been over a decade since I bothered memorizing a phone number, so I don't really feel qualified to pass judgment on whether they're that much better or worse. But I appreciate that the LinkNYC Wi-Fi access points are often easier and faster than those of the stores/cafes around them, and I appreciate being able to stop and charge up my phone a bit if it dies while I'm out and about. (Did this a lot during the Pokemon Go craze!)
rustybelt 39 days ago [-]
This was a fun 2002 movie that would make no sense to zoomers:
it made no sense to anyone by then, in 2002 every adult who wanted the mobile had one already for few years, by then I've had already at least 3rd one and I was really poor, just finished my military service and had no work yet
after all phone booths were always seen mostly in American movies and no average person would use one in home country by 2000
codegeek 39 days ago [-]
I never understood that part about Matrix. They already had cellphones where they would discuss how to get to the nearest pay phone. Why not just use the cell phone to transmit ? Ah well, it wouldn't be as fun though especially that iconic scene where Trinity almost gets hit by a vehicle.
anon_123g987 39 days ago [-]
From an interview with the directors:
Sinclair: Why were they only able to jack in through hard-lines, but still able to communicate over cell?
WachowskiBros: Sinclair, good question! Mostly we felt that the amount of information that was being sent into the Matrix required a significant portal. Those portals, we felt, were better described with the hard lines rather than cell lines. We also felt that the rebels tried to be invisible when they hacked that’s why all the entrances and exits were sort of through decrepit and low traffic areas of the Matrix.
It'll be interesting that in a few years that will become the most poorly aged portion of the movie.
ekianjo 39 days ago [-]
Nope. The movie takes place in a recreation of 1999.
apocalyptic0n3 39 days ago [-]
Yep. And Resurrections, which takes place in a recreation of 2021 (or thereabouts), allows for using cellphones to exit. They even make a point of pointing that out in the film. I think within the context of the movies, they made it very difficult for anything to "age poorly" like that because it's all meant to be a representation of a very specific point in time.
asdff 39 days ago [-]
There are still some payphones around especially in the working class areas of LA. I think a payphone must still be the cheapest way to dial family in some countries. They all advertise their international rates at least.
busterarm 39 days ago [-]
I used to drunkenly urinate in those...
...No love for honesty, I guess.
izzydata 39 days ago [-]
Hopefully you use your personal cellphone now.
ls15 39 days ago [-]
And now all of them needed to be removed!
HeckFeck 39 days ago [-]
So that joke in Futurama was true after all.
Layke1123 39 days ago [-]
Lol, I love that you were honest.
It doesn't mean you should get praised for the other effects your actions had, but I do appreciate the honesty. Hopefully you now understand why people don't like others urinating in spaces where they possibly have to also occupy.
at-fates-hands 39 days ago [-]
I remember back in my phreaking days, you were considered a rock star if you were able to steal a pay phone. I also remember writing down several payphone numbers and calling them at all hours to see who would pick up.
Its interesting in the article they don't address what the maintenance costs of these were, only they were "obsolete".
I do remember being in DT Minneapolis on a first date. Car broke down, cell phone was dead and we had to walk around for about an hour before finding a pay phone and being able to call a cab. It occurred to me at that point that payphones are largely ignored until you need them and you're thankful they're there.
krallja 39 days ago [-]
We would call the pay phone at the front of Steak ‘n Shake and talk to whichever drunk person picked up. Very amusing in the 90s. Then, some of us got cell phones, and we could call from the parking lot and see who we were talking to, without them knowing who they were talking to.
GekkePrutser 39 days ago [-]
For those in Europe ("this content is not available in your region" bullshit): https://archive.ph/XZ6rW
Not that we're missing much. The title says it all.
39 days ago [-]
jppope 39 days ago [-]
I'm actually shocked that they knew where all the pay phones were. I feel like they're going to announce in like a year that they messed up and found another one in like queens or something.
busterarm 39 days ago [-]
They're a platform for advertising that's all owned by the same company (Titan, which merged into the company that owns LinkNYC).
Advertisers keep good records.
bogomipz 39 days ago [-]
The folks behind this advertising platform is much more of a Matryoshka doll though. Briefly, the history is that the contract to replace the pay phone kiosks was awarded to a consortium called CityBridge which consisted of Titan, Qualcomm, Comark and Control Group. Control Group and Titan then merged to form a company called Intersection. The lead investor in Intersection was Sidewalk Labs aka Alphabet aka Google. The CEO of of Sidewalk Labs is Daniel Doctoroff who was the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding under NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg. As always follow the money.
busterarm 39 days ago [-]
Well aware of this, without going into it all. -- I interviewed there some years ago. The manager at the time who was interviewing was a really cool dude but he moved on to Amazon since then.
astura 39 days ago [-]
Well someone has to empty them, right? So they must know where they are.
Per the article, there's some private payphones around still, so you might still see them.
buildsjets 39 days ago [-]
Manhattan phonebooth memories- my father hoisting me up to stand on top of one to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade, early 1980s. Where is Superman gonna change into his tights now?
unionemployee 39 days ago [-]
The characters signing in with their unique splash screens at NYC pay phones in the movie Hackers was quite cool to 12 year old me.
takk309 39 days ago [-]
I spent a stupid amount of time figuring out how to make a custom splash screen for Windows XP. And then a service pack reverted all my efforts. Good times.
a-dub 39 days ago [-]
that's right i forgot all about service packs. in the days before continuous patch delivery.
windows nt 4.0 sp #3 64mb installed
ooohlala
39 days ago [-]
rand0m4r 39 days ago [-]
> This content is not available in your country/region.
Not cool
rob_c 39 days ago [-]
yes, but call it out and you typically get critizied as being some sort of horrible person calling for the US-centric forum to burn down.
The archived page is unusable (article text is blurred).
Markoff 38 days ago [-]
works fine for me I'm Kiwi browser with ublock
Payphones once dominated New York City street corners. Now, there’s only one public street payphone left in Manhattan — but not for long.
Officials with the city, LinkNYC and other partners will remove the last payphone on Monday. A ceremony was expected to be held near Seventh Avenue and 49th Street.
More NYC news
The removal of public street payphones began in 2015 after the city acknowledged that advances in technology made them virtually obsolete. New York City officials partnered with LinkNYC to phase in free Wi-Fi stands and charging stations as a replacement. LinkNYC kiosks also provide a social services directory, free phone calls within the U.S., neighborhood-specific advertising and transit and weather alerts.
You can still find some private payphones on public property in New York City as well as four full-length phone booths.
This summer, LinkNYC plans to expand in New York City with its rollout of Link5G and additional kiosks in the outer boroughs as well as in Manhattan above 96th Street and in communities that lack internet access.
jakzurr 39 days ago [-]
Maybe not worth your trouble, but adding NoScript to Chrome works for me.
ascar 39 days ago [-]
It's one "valid" way of complying with GDPR.
39 days ago [-]
midasuni 39 days ago [-]
Thoughts and prayers for Clark Kent
aasasd 39 days ago [-]
Here in the country of an encroaching police state, I recently learned that we do still have street ‘payphones’. And then, that they only work with special pay cards, and to buy one you need to provide your ID.
kebman 39 days ago [-]
Quick! Get hold of a few! Save it for a film set in the 90's!
donohoe 39 days ago [-]
No. It is not the last. There is still one in the Upper West Side.
Rockjodd 39 days ago [-]
> This content is not available in your country/region.
Sad Internet.
drawfloat 39 days ago [-]
I can imagine an incredibly rare situation where I need to use a payphone, it once happened to me.
I also know that I don't know any phone numbers but my own from memory.
LAC-Tech 39 days ago [-]
The nation that sent men to the moon is only just now removing payphones from the most important part of its most important city?
The world is weird.
Trasmatta 39 days ago [-]
Payphones have been mostly gone for ages in NYC, there were just a few stragglers.
I don't see any connection between the moon and payphones, anyways.
gtirloni 39 days ago [-]
Big nations move slowly. The future is not evenly distributed... yadda, yadda, yadda. Like in IT, nobody is interested in dealing with technical debt.
smm11 39 days ago [-]
Yet it's impossible to imagine a nation with electric vehicle charging stations, and no more 'gas stations.'
Payphones once dominated New York City street corners. Now, there’s only one public street payphone left in Manhattan — but not for long.
Officials with the city, LinkNYC and other partners will remove the last payphone on Monday. A ceremony was expected to be held near Seventh Avenue and 49th Street.
The removal of public street payphones began in 2015 after the city acknowledged that advances in technology made them virtually obsolete. New York City officials partnered with LinkNYC to phase in free Wi-Fi stands and charging stations as a replacement. LinkNYC kiosks also provide a social services directory, free phone calls within the U.S., neighborhood-specific advertising and transit and weather alerts.
You can still find some private payphones on public property in New York City as well as four full-length phone booths.
This summer, LinkNYC plans to expand in New York City with its rollout of Link5G and additional kiosks in the outer boroughs as well as in Manhattan above 96th Street and in communities that lack internet access.
GekkePrutser 39 days ago [-]
Oops sorry I was also posting this, hadn't seen yours
NanoWar 39 days ago [-]
Matrix would happen differently today
sandworm101 39 days ago [-]
>> You can still find some private payphones on public property in New York City as well as four full-length phone booths.
That means the title is very misleading. This appears to be the end of the last publicly-available payphone on public land, not the last payphone in NYC. There just aren't any on the streets.
leetrout 39 days ago [-]
The title also specifically says Manhattan. Maybe there are still some in the other boroughs.
39 days ago [-]
usr1106 39 days ago [-]
Here (Finland's 3rd biggest city) this happened on 29-Sep-2007, nearly 15 years ago.
Just for comparison. Most Finn's are very proud of being digital leaders, but I don't say it's really a good thing. Children, tourists, homeless etc. should be able to use a phone. Everybody should be able to communicate without leaving digital tracks. Surveillance capitalism is a sick model.
tialaramex 39 days ago [-]
Everybody should have access to the Network. It's weird to prioritise a previous (and of course much less capable) iteration of the Network, in this case the Public Switched Telephone Network over the current one, the Internet.
Ambient Network Access is to be encouraged, I am disappointed when I see friends endeavouring to keep their young children from accessing the Network out of a misplaced fear it will stunt their intellectual development somehow. To be sure children need to be given boundaries and supervision, but preventing access is no sort of way to achieve that. For tourists and the homeless there's even less excuse.
usr1106 39 days ago [-]
Well, then you would need to advocate public internet terminals that can be accessed at reasonable cost.
Some countries have internet cafes, but Finland has never really had them to any extent because "too many" have internet at home (in the earlier days) or in their pocket (nowadays). Libraries do offer decent access, but sometimes you might have to wait 48 hours or more until it opens next time. And the density of libraries is of course nowhere close to what payphones once were. And you cannot have a confidential phone call in a library.
So in some aspects what you call the current iteration of the network is not much more capable for everyone, quite the opposite. At least 10% of the population (mostly elder people) are completely locked out here. Many more in other countries, but there often more alternative channels still exist.
Long story short, in 1970 you could get a phone call at the bar down the street and ring home if you were in trouble. People in the neighbourhoods were eager to help. In 2022, in Sicily, if you lose your mobile phone you're effectively _done_.
See also: the automobile, at least as experienced in the US and similar countries.
[EDIT] and in both cases, the problem is the effect the new thing had on the environment around it. When tech- and progress-focused people can't figure out why some cultures/countries have "anti-progress" laws (France's protection of book stores, for instance), well, this is often part of why they do that.
This is an enormously under-appreciated perspective here, thanks for pointing it out. What appears to be a foolish luddite is often someone with a thoughtful, long-term perspective based on hard-won experience.
Chesterton's Fence, yet again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_...
It's rare but I have had someone ask to use my phone and I let them without any question
You'll want at least a bicycle in rural Europe, but you don't normally need a whole lot more.
2 hours to bus to work or 15 minutes to drive.
I'm in Victoria and don't need a car (have one, though).
More to the point, most of those areas outside of Toronto and Montreal have middling-to-no usable public transport. For example, I was recently passing by Kingston, ON, which has buses in some parts of the city but they reach a fraction of the population in the Kingston metro area. The same goes for much of the Windsor-London corridor. The qualification I stated was "urban areas that don't require cars," not any urban area.
[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS?locat...
Plenty of places in the US you don’t need a car either by that definition.
The only bit of trouble I had throughout the entire trip was me trying to be a good Samaritan.
Someone approached me, lost, asking me for directions because they didn't have a phone. In my American naivete, I pulled out my phone and help them look for this fictitious restaurant they were supposedly looking for.
During the conversation, the person got close to me and before I knew it had pick pocketed 50 euros out of my pocket.
I'd still do my best to help in the future, but I can definitely understand why people are reluctant to help others in foreign countries.
Did some 11-year-old kid just get on the bus? Is he wearing a fluffy jacket? That little shit is gonna try to pickpocket you, guaranteed. He likely has a razor blade and will slice open the bottom of your backpack while people are jostling each other around on the bus. Have nothing in your pockets, keep your back to the wall, and hold your backpack in your hands in front of you. Did a well-dressed stranger smile and strike up a conversation? They're a Jehovah's Witness, and they're going to try to manipulate you into letting them come into your house and indoctrinate you. Don't acknowledge their existence. Don't smile back, don't make eye contact. Zero engagement. Is some friendly guy at the Trevi Fountain offer you a fun-looking squishy balloon? It's the cheapest possible thing you can imagine, and he's going to start demanding 50x the value of the thing once you were naive enough to actually grab it when he shoved it at you. Is there a transient woman in the train station with a young child lurching at you while shoving the kid into your arms? She's going to start screaming that you're a kidnapper and then demand 50 euros from you to make your new "problem" go away. Did the ticket checker claim that your bus ticket wasn't stamped correctly? Nothing a 20-euro "fine," paid in cash directly to the ticket-checker, won't fix.
By the way, any and all of the above happened to an American in my group at one point or another -- sometimes several times -- in our years there.
When travelling I might make out I am a hippy traveller type (low value target), or act like I’m from another country (e.g. Spanish tourists are known to be tight/tacaño in Morocco), and I try to avoid carrying or wearing anything that makes me stand out as a target (bumbag, camera, expensive accessories, high value branded clothes).
As a broad rule, you need to be most safety conscious in high density tourist areas. The only places I have been where I really knew I was unsafe were Rio (dangerous to locals too), and Nha Trang. In areas with very few tourists, I have usually been able to be fairly trusting, which leads to better experiences. Travelling as a hypersensitive victim is not fun: people sense your distrust and react poorly to it.
I am a New Zealander, and we tend to have a reputation for friendliness, which I try to project and maintain our reputation.
I have been obnoxiously drunk a few times when I have pretended to be Australian or American, sorry guys.
That would mean losing a hundred pounds. Easier said than done.
I got lost running in a not-fancy and exclusive but quite nice area in an outer borough of NYC a couple years ago. I didn't have my phone.
Dressed like I was going to run a marathon, I asked people who I saw had phones if they would be so kind as to look up the directions to where I had come from.
Several different people, including one in a city agency truck, refused to open Google Maps for me. One claimed their smart phone didn't have a maps app and the others said things about data or they were in a rush.
I couldn't believe it and I wound up getting help from an old man who gave me audible directions that included so many steps I only found my way back by going in the right direction and slowly getting less lost.
The first one would make me question if you are trying to steal my phone or something, but I might pull out my phone to help you with the second.
This works pretty reliably, at least in cities, by the way.
I went to the library, asked to use one of the computers they have for library patrons.
I was able to use Google Maps, but I couldn't get in touch with a friend who lived nearby, because -- I didn't have my phone. Everything set up with two-factor authentication, I couldn't get to email or send text message. Maybe just as well, on a public kiosk like that. But was distressing.
There's 2FA on my dreams.
https://www.link.nyc/
How do they work in practice? Do they get vandalized a lot? Do people actually charge their devices with them?
-
https://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/News_events/2019/April_2019/...
Oh now I get *in*.
I'm in.
This also adds on an additional concern as places begin to forego say physical credit cards and IDs in favor of electronic ones that again live on your phone. If that phone is dead, you can't even buy a new one or get money from an ATM. Likely in such a future I'll need to have a redundant phone on me at all times just incase this happens.
My point is that in cities you evolve an attitude that pretty much anyone who walks up to you with a sob story is likely to be at best a beggar and at worst a thief/scammer. I think you could get someone to make a call on your behalf but actually handing you their phone (even for a moment) - that might be less common than you think.
As a result, I overheard her entire long desperate attempt to persuade her mother to give her another other other other last chance. :-( :-( :-(
Most people aren't using and can't afford the flagship models. I personnally have never bought a smartphone more than 180€ and I know a lot of people doing the same thing.
Most people I know have flagship phones and the ability to make many smaller payments may have something to do with that.
Also I've seen people do that drop/lose/get their expensive phone stolen and then pay for almost 2 years for a device they don't use. The replacement is usually a lot cheaper and they realize their life is not that different with a cheaper smartphone and don't repeat the experience unless they are social status show offs.
Access to all of my personal info, my password manager, etc. If someone turned and ran with my phone, it would give me days worth of hassle to replace and recover things like canceling my SIM card, buying a new one, changing 2FA, trying to remotely wipe it, maybe provide info to police.
I hate how dependent I am on this little rectangle but it’s kind of just reality these days to have so much of our lives closely tied to it
Last time I dropped my phone in the sea, I got a new sim card the next day from my operator, reactivating all the 2FA shit isn't too complicated as long as you keep the same number. It was annoying but 99% was taken care of as soon as I had the sim card.
The only thing that took several days was access to a bank account I have open in a remote country as I hadn't given them my latest address and they had to do back to back verifications, shipping me codes then calling me to verify the same person who was on the phone was living in the place he pretended to live, then sending me back 2 different letters one with a new password, one with a code to activate 2FA.
People have many, many biases. (For example, against homeless, and those who are often in most need of help.)
The reality of depending on other people is that you're dependent on their flaws. This works out for most people, but certainly does not for many of those who are marginalized.
Even if you didn't you would just call collect.
People think I’m crazy for it though.
If you're not aware, many people are assholes, and the story that you're reading is about an instance where someone was finding that everyone around them was being an asshole, that means it's less than likely that they would have stopped to give them directions.
Oh come on, most people are awesome. People LOVE to help, it empowers them, makes them feel good. When you look at books with advice about building relationships and friendships, you'll almost always find suggestions to ASK people you want to get closer to for help.
The world is full of many lovely, caring people, but that does little to help a person when they happen to run into a bunch of assholes.
It is very feasible that a person travelling to another country could have a negative experience with everyone they meet due to racism or xenophobia, or whatever and that this would lead to a situation where even people on the street show them nothing but scorn.
Imagine a Ukrainian asking for the nearest police station in Russia right now.
Or someone wearing a thin blue line asking for directions at a stereotypical leftist college campus.
> Or someone wearing a thin blue line asking for directions at a stereotypical leftist college campus.
I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if in either case the person who is lost gets the help they need.
The world is full of assholes, but they are the minority compared to the majority of helpful people, especially when it comes to simple things such as direction. Speak the local language helps of course.
Every single time?
Like you're saying that there's absolutely no chance that this could happen in these situations, or in any situations, which makes no sense given that statistically this kind of shit happens every day to someone.
At almost any given moment someone is being told to fuck off because the asked a stranger for directions.
Have you never had this happen to you?
Not sure what you expect to happen. There won't be any way to tell the difference, and even if there was nobody would care. In Moscow on a busy street, you'll probably be ignored for some time until someone helps you, not just because they are assholes there, but simply because most people aren't locals; in most sub-1M cities, there will be plenty of people willing to help.
I happily help strangers when I can, but I'm not going to hand over the keys to my entire life, on the most fragile and expensive object I probably have on my person.
Not saying you didn't do this but I'm much more likely to help when someone comes up with a clear and concise statement of the problem and a minimally intrusive solution ("hey, my phone is dead and my wife has the charger, could you call the Hilton on speaker and ask for Room 123?" or even "could I log in to my Facebook for a second and send a message to my friend saying I don't have my phone but I'll be at Starbucks, you can hold the phone?")
3-4 years ago I got stuck in San Francisco with a dead cellphone and broken car. I remembered my spouse's number, I don't remember of I forgot my wallet somewhere or it wasn't accepting cards, but I do remember asking a random woman on the street for few coins. Anyway, I was able to call and even to get a call back in few minutes.
It can be a public safety matter, hopefully no-one needs it, but when one does, can be for a good reason.
If you live in the NYC area, I guess you could hop on down and verify this yourself.
Via 2600 (which if you ever read you'd know would be on the case) https://twitter.com/2600/status/1529174328054620162
Now, the Link kiosks are 99.9% about advertising, with just enough of a public service to justify this base monetization of the commons. On the whole, I'm not a fan. I went to a tech talk at the company behind them (in a swanky new tower in the Hudson yards) and their sizzle/promo reel running on a loop really made me sick.
If you were in NYC in the early 2000s, you'd generally have one person on every train car on a nextel chirp phone having a conversation for everyone to enjoy.
I'd rather just walk in the rain.
There are at least four other payphones on sidewalks in the UWS.
There was a situation in Canada a year or two ago where one of our two main wireless providers rolled out a bad firmware update to all of their transmitters at the same time and had a system wide outage for nearly nine hours, I could imagine a need for payphones if something like that were to happen in NYC.
This was decades ago, but still in an Era when people were asking why pay phones still exist. It's the ad revenue.
Companies like Cemusa give cities like NYC big money (dozens or hundreds of millions) to buy the right to provide the city with " street furniture" for free, in exchange for the right to sell the ad revenue placed on those pieces of street furniture. This includes pay phones, bus stop shelters, benches, news stands, etc.
This dynamic is what caused NYC payphones to exist far beyond their useful life as pay phones.
I talk about it on this "being an engineer" podcast I was recently on: https://teampipeline.us/ian-mceachern-engineering-freelancin...
JCDecaux is the other one - they actually bought Cemusa a few years ago.
About 11m calls were made across Telstra pay phones in the past year, including 230,000 calls to critical services such as triple zero and Lifeline.
The Telstra chief executive, Andrew Penn, said pay phones were a vital lifeline, particularly for the homeless and people escaping an unsafe situation.
“I have been moved seeing firsthand queues of people waiting in line to use a payphone to tell their family and friends they’re safe after a bushfire, a cyclone or some other natural disaster has taken the mobile network down,” he said.[1]
I believe the existence/number of payphones is mandated by the federal government.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/aug/03/telstra-to-...
Unfortunately, carriers are letting POTS rot.
It is arguably unreliable now in some places. My grandmother's land line (semi-rural Ohio) goes out every few months and it usually takes a week or so for them to fix it. When we talked to them at one point, they suggested she get a cell phone.
Just another example of how planning for quarterly reports causes massive value destruction.
I can only imagine the ghosts of old-school telco linemen rolling in their graves over this.
I keep meaning to do a deep-dive into public utility regulation here to see if the incumbent telcos are required to maintain that infrastructure. I'd actually have fun going out and photographing/geotagging damaged infrastructure if a court would actually compel the telco to do something about it.
The actual fix here is that we have to take a hard look and really decide if this is something worth keeping around. If it is, it needs massive ongoing subsidies. The market alone won’t fix it, because the economics simply aren’t there.
I think there may be a a divide between toll/non toll roads tho — curious if anyone knows why this is.
They also can be helpful when your mobile's battery runs out.
And I had to text. Scam calls have made it far too unlikely that anyone picks up for an unknown number
Which, if they are cellular based don't solve for the problem, but I suspect some are hardwired?
But just for curiosity, whom/where you wanna call in 2022++ in case of overloaded networks like Sep. 11th in 2001. At least I didn't even "own" (actually set-up) my landline anymore.
I learned about attacks when visiting netcafe (just some irrelevant foreign news) and then guys in my platoon were listening to radio and even our local TV channel strangely aired CNN footage instead south American telenovela guys watched for pretty girls. we had talk in evening with highest captain or mayor in our barracks in evening, we doubled our shifts to protect installations (guys were happy, at least they had someone to talk to legally during guarding) plus nearby nuclear power plant, first night of 9/11 I spent with unplanned night shift on the fax waiting for instructions from HQ and later was forced to guard as well despite as bureaucrat I should be pretty much exempted from it
Regardless, hardly ubiquitous.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Regional-and-global-cell...
At first I couldn’t find anyone who’d allow me to make a call real quick. Luckily the phone worked fine and I still had wifi and was able to use Google voice, but if pay phones were still a thing I may have reached for one.
I do believe cell towers have ways to prioritize emergency number calls if their capacity is reduced, but I'm not sure of the details.
If you happen to find yourself running from somebody named Mr. Anderson…
> The LinkNYC buildout halted in 2018, with the majority of kiosks installed in relatively plugged-in Manhattan ... The company wound up unable to make its payments to the city, racking up a bill of $60 million. By 2019, the company faced bankruptcy ... The reboot of LinkNYC will add fifth-generation cellular network technology, on top of existing features like free Wi-Fi, a 911 button and USB chargers. Multiple telecom companies are in talks to house their 5G equipment in compartments in the upper chambers of the poles, Cannon said.
"You called me from a payphone / They still got payphones / it cost a dollar a minute"
and I realized "holy shit, when was the last time I saw a pay phone?" And I don't know the answer to that question. It might* be a weird one I saw at the end of a bar in a remote pub in Northumberland in the summer of 2019, in an area with dodgy cell service. I have NO idea when I last saw a real Ma Bell style pay phone anywhere.
(* Like most middle-aged men, I'm a fan. You laugh (I assume), but there was a definite non-parent adult contingent at her concert here last weekend. It seems weird for a south-of-30 songwriter tied very much to a certain sort of Millennial life to resonate so much outside the most obvious core demographic, but here we are.)
But for me, in a pre-subscription service world, I doubt I would've found her. What marketing formation for her that existed was kinda lean, and I don't automatically assume that every songwriter is gonna resonate with me. I mostly assume that people far removed from me probably WON'T, especially if the gap is huge. Bridgers is young enough to be my kid, and not in a cheeky "only if I knocked up a girl in high school" way. She's from a part of the country far from me, and works in a style that isn't immediately assumed to be universal.
And yet, here I am.
I'm kinda fascinated by issues around music discovery, and how they changed in my lifetime. I'm 52. My music-listening life probably started at 10 or 12, so let's just say 12 so it's a nice round 40 years ago.
Back then, you were a prisoner of what got played on the radio, but it was also SUPER weird for "adults" -- people my parents' age, typically born immediately before, during, or immediately after WWII -- to listen to popular music at all, and so there wasn't really any in the house. My parents didn't even own a stereo.
We had two "top 40" stations in town, but the playlists were not very different (at least they WERE locally programmed, unlike today). Precious little pop music was on TV; unlike today, when bands sometimes get huge exposure by having a song played in a popular show, it just didn't happen for whatever reason back then. (I suspect rights issues and the lack of cross-ownership between TV networks and music firms.)
And, obviously, there was no online music.
The world of pop music was also MUCH smaller. There was, for one thing, only about 20 years of the form -- probably less. I usually mark the start of modern pop music to 1966, but reasonable people can disagree on the specifics. The point is that the genesis point was sometime in the mid 60s, and we're talking about the early to mid 80s. It was simpler, with fewer subgenres, and next to nothing happening that wasn't part of the big-record-label A&R process. Recording was expensive and required lots of expertise. (Another act that's huge now, Billie Eilish, absolutely wouldn't have happened the way she's happened -- ie, recording her debuts in her childhood bedroom with only her brother as a collaborator. The rise of home recording tech is a whole OTHER world of miracles and wonders.)
And, finally, if you wanted to give a new act a try, you pretty much had to buy the record, so it cost money to discover.
Contrast that with now. I found Bridgers because I read a profile of her in the New Yorker (in my capacity as a white upper-middle-class tote-bag-owning urban liberal).
It was interesting partly because it was the first piece of "COVID-era" journalism I read. The New Yorker, if you're not familiar, is rightly famous for continuing to do the sort of long-form articles that used to be much more common, including in-depth profiles of interesting people. Sometimes they're famous, sometimes they're clearly on their way to being famous (like Bridgers) and sometimes they're scientists or something who will never be household names but who are still doing something very cool.
Usually these involve a writer hanging out with the person for several days over several weeks to kinda get to know them & etc, but obviously with COVID that didn't happen, and the way they managed it was interesting to me at the time (lots of Facetime). And it was after reading that that I realized I could just "hey Siri" some Bridgers for no additional incremental cost, and then I found myself playing "Punisher" over and over in a way I almost never have with a record since I was in my 20s.
There's something really interesting about how this worked to me. It's so VASTLY different than the world of music was when I was growing up that I'm fascinated by it, and by the "odd" (at least superficially) things that come out of it, like middle aged people finding and loving an act that, 30 years ago, probably wouldn't have been on their radar AT ALL because of her age, gender, and the sort of inevitable pigeonholing that labels would've done.
I called the operator and told them. I didn't care about the money, I just wanted a working phone.
A few weeks later I got a check in the mail for $0.25. It was on old letterhead from the telephone company's old name.
From the outside it looks totally backward to get rid of pay phones. You don’t use them until you need them. It costs little to maintain them and on balance it is a social good.
Hey, congratulations on Manhattan for finally solving poverty and homelessness. I wonder which technology they used for that.
EDIT: I was curious if they removed it in the last few days so I went out and took a picture: https://imgur.com/a/dQdSEzQ
Has a dial tone and everything. But maybe this is one of the private ones the article mentions?
That said, it's vanishingly rare that I actually see anyone using them to make calls, and it looks kind of silly when you do use them because you need to plug headphones into the jack. Their primary utility is for device charging and free Wi-Fi.
- Access city services, maps and directions from the tablet
- Make free phone calls to anywhere in the U.S. using the tablet or the tactile keypad and microphone. Plug in your personal headphones for more privacy.
- Use the dedicated red 911 button in the event of an emergency
- Charge your device in a power-only USB port
[...]
Sounds cool! Wish we had terminals like these in Germany. Here, they just remove the pay phones, period.
From 2010-2017 or so, unlimited data plans were some combination of rare/slow/expensive, and especially in the early 2010s smartphones had a lot less penetration. I imagine these terminals would have been life-savers back then.
https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/designcommission/downloads/pdf/1...
- monolithic eyesores that take up precious sidewalk space
- yet another bright display running advertisements 24/7
- charging stations for the homeless to use and loiter around
Poor execution of a good idea. I smile whenever I walk by one that has been vandalized.
To be fair, so were the pay phones they replaced. NYC just doesn't have enough sidewalk space in a lot of areas.
Isn't that a good thing?
From their privacy policy (https://www.link.nyc/privacy-policy.html):
> We may share Technical Information that is unassociated with you and your device:
> With analytics, search engine, or other service providers that help us improve the Services; > To advertisers and advertising networks to select and serve relevant advertisements.
They're useless for anything besides 911 functionality. I would definitely not recommend connecting to its Wi-Fi service without a VPN and spoofed, one-time MAC address.
Pay phones were the same way. The quarter payment was just on top of the money from advertisements.
This one collects data about your usage of the device (and the mere fact that you were there at a certain time) and then shares it with lots of "partners" so they can refine the profile they have on you even further.
Frankly, I wasn't making any calls on the old payphones either, and it's been over a decade since I bothered memorizing a phone number, so I don't really feel qualified to pass judgment on whether they're that much better or worse. But I appreciate that the LinkNYC Wi-Fi access points are often easier and faster than those of the stores/cafes around them, and I appreciate being able to stop and charge up my phone a bit if it dies while I'm out and about. (Did this a lot during the Pokemon Go craze!)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0183649/
after all phone booths were always seen mostly in American movies and no average person would use one in home country by 2000
Sinclair: Why were they only able to jack in through hard-lines, but still able to communicate over cell?
WachowskiBros: Sinclair, good question! Mostly we felt that the amount of information that was being sent into the Matrix required a significant portal. Those portals, we felt, were better described with the hard lines rather than cell lines. We also felt that the rebels tried to be invisible when they hacked that’s why all the entrances and exits were sort of through decrepit and low traffic areas of the Matrix.
The full interview: https://www.matrixfans.net/movies/the-matrix/wachowski-broth...
More speculation by a fan about this: https://screenrant.com/matrix-phone-hard-line-enter-exit-exp...
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0183649/
...No love for honesty, I guess.
It doesn't mean you should get praised for the other effects your actions had, but I do appreciate the honesty. Hopefully you now understand why people don't like others urinating in spaces where they possibly have to also occupy.
Its interesting in the article they don't address what the maintenance costs of these were, only they were "obsolete".
I do remember being in DT Minneapolis on a first date. Car broke down, cell phone was dead and we had to walk around for about an hour before finding a pay phone and being able to call a cab. It occurred to me at that point that payphones are largely ignored until you need them and you're thankful they're there.
Not that we're missing much. The title says it all.
Advertisers keep good records.
Per the article, there's some private payphones around still, so you might still see them.
windows nt 4.0 sp #3 64mb installed
ooohlala
Not cool
https://archive.today/XZ6rW
Payphones once dominated New York City street corners. Now, there’s only one public street payphone left in Manhattan — but not for long. Officials with the city, LinkNYC and other partners will remove the last payphone on Monday. A ceremony was expected to be held near Seventh Avenue and 49th Street. More NYC news The removal of public street payphones began in 2015 after the city acknowledged that advances in technology made them virtually obsolete. New York City officials partnered with LinkNYC to phase in free Wi-Fi stands and charging stations as a replacement. LinkNYC kiosks also provide a social services directory, free phone calls within the U.S., neighborhood-specific advertising and transit and weather alerts. You can still find some private payphones on public property in New York City as well as four full-length phone booths. This summer, LinkNYC plans to expand in New York City with its rollout of Link5G and additional kiosks in the outer boroughs as well as in Manhattan above 96th Street and in communities that lack internet access.
Sad Internet.
I also know that I don't know any phone numbers but my own from memory.
The world is weird.
I don't see any connection between the moon and payphones, anyways.
Payphones once dominated New York City street corners. Now, there’s only one public street payphone left in Manhattan — but not for long.
Officials with the city, LinkNYC and other partners will remove the last payphone on Monday. A ceremony was expected to be held near Seventh Avenue and 49th Street.
The removal of public street payphones began in 2015 after the city acknowledged that advances in technology made them virtually obsolete. New York City officials partnered with LinkNYC to phase in free Wi-Fi stands and charging stations as a replacement. LinkNYC kiosks also provide a social services directory, free phone calls within the U.S., neighborhood-specific advertising and transit and weather alerts.
You can still find some private payphones on public property in New York City as well as four full-length phone booths.
This summer, LinkNYC plans to expand in New York City with its rollout of Link5G and additional kiosks in the outer boroughs as well as in Manhattan above 96th Street and in communities that lack internet access.
That means the title is very misleading. This appears to be the end of the last publicly-available payphone on public land, not the last payphone in NYC. There just aren't any on the streets.
Just for comparison. Most Finn's are very proud of being digital leaders, but I don't say it's really a good thing. Children, tourists, homeless etc. should be able to use a phone. Everybody should be able to communicate without leaving digital tracks. Surveillance capitalism is a sick model.
Ambient Network Access is to be encouraged, I am disappointed when I see friends endeavouring to keep their young children from accessing the Network out of a misplaced fear it will stunt their intellectual development somehow. To be sure children need to be given boundaries and supervision, but preventing access is no sort of way to achieve that. For tourists and the homeless there's even less excuse.
Some countries have internet cafes, but Finland has never really had them to any extent because "too many" have internet at home (in the earlier days) or in their pocket (nowadays). Libraries do offer decent access, but sometimes you might have to wait 48 hours or more until it opens next time. And the density of libraries is of course nowhere close to what payphones once were. And you cannot have a confidential phone call in a library.
So in some aspects what you call the current iteration of the network is not much more capable for everyone, quite the opposite. At least 10% of the population (mostly elder people) are completely locked out here. Many more in other countries, but there often more alternative channels still exist.