Data is Beautiful

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Little graph to remind you how unbelievable it is that you can instantly contact someone anywhere on the planet for free (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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From https://x.com/waitbutwhy/status/1843346677161472417

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (2 children)

In the late 90s, a roomate ran up our $12 phone bill to over $300 by calling his girlfriend who lived 60 miles away because he didn't know it cost more per minute than him calling someone outside the state.

The current pricing is so much better than ut was back then.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Holy hell, wtf?

Some kind of special ultra-cheap local-only plan? ($12/MO was really cheap back then - I worked for a telco and that was my discounted employee price). Sounds like the idea was you would use a different long-distance provider.

I was paying 10¢/min to London in the 80's via Sprint.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yes, at the time local calls were basically within the same city in Kansas and long distance was between multiple local companies that all charged a lot to cross networks.

Out of state calls were through a national carrier, which is why they were cheaper. If I rememeber correctly the in state calls were like 5x the out of state calls and he was expecting it to be less for the shorter distance, like tens of dollars instead of hundreds.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Oh, wow. Break up of Bell really screwed you on that one. (Not that I think the breakup was bad, it helped everything - just your local companies decided to take advantage. Which is funny, because they used to be related Business Units in Ma Bell, so the leadership probably all knew each other from working together).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Whenever I moved into a new place in the '90s, I'd have a phone line installed in my room (I was always a roommate to somebody) and it only ever cost me $12 a month. Special Lifeline Service for poor people.

Not sure why I ever did this since I was never home.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

I'm not your roommate, but back in the late 80s I racked up quite a few bills - at 10 cents per minute - to talk to my long-distance girlfriend.

She and I just had our 30th anniversary yesterday, so I guess it was worth it.