Im in my 30s, i used a phonebooth once. I was 16 and had run away from home, i made it 3 hours down the train line and called someone in the hope they’d come get me, but they didnt answer because it was 2am. I also sent a text to my girlfriend (it was very serious)
sigh, almost everyone in that story is dead now
Woah, didn’t expect such a tragic ending there.
I mean, when was the last time you saw a payphone out in the wild? I can tell you it’s been at least a decade for me.
They’re everywhere in Australia. Technically not payphones anymore though, they’re free.
I’m pretty certain Telstra also runs free WiFi from them as well! At least the ones around me do!
Yeah, a lot of them do have wi-fi
The impoverished city I work near has them all over the place. I’ve seen people using them. Blows my mind every time.
There’s a regional chain of gas stations around me that has a payphone and a road map posted on the wall just inside the door of every location, just in case someone is having a really bad day.
There’s a lot still standing in Brazil, none that I’ve seen look like they’ve worked in years though. Seems like they shut them off but never bothered to remove them. They have cool looking egg-like covers on them.
Wow, not even a half-hearted pretense of trying to give you any shelter from the rain.
They have booths all over the place in australia, it was going to cost too much to remove them. They made them free, and use them as billboards.
I still see them at some airports, and sometimes by bus stations. So several times a year. But besides those places, yeah they’re pretty rare
did they work though? understandably you weren’t carrying sanitary wipes every single time. surely you had your paper copies of 2600
I mean I didn’t try them, but I’ve seen modern ones with tap-to-pay. Makes some sense in international airports, a lot of people don’t get a sim or e-sim sorted ahead of time. Might need to call a hotel or taxi service, as I’ve seen those that don’t seem to have a way to contact them besides phone.
There was one that worked up until a few years ago that was in the middle of the Mojave somewhere. Decades ago someone posted the phone number somewhere online, and people started calling it all the time just to see if anyone answered. They finally decommissioned it not too long ago
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5OoK9OTZ35SGJi18RSeR1i
E: this episode is from 10 years ago so I guess its been longer than I thought
there was one at a college I saw. The phone part had been ripped out :/
Probably at a speakeasy
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Especially outside and with the phone book holder too!
Oooh, I forgot about the phone book holders haha
I actually saw one a few months ago, it didn’t work 😔.
Big sad.
That’s the only way out of the Matrix.
Ever noticed payphones started disappearing after The Matrix came out? THEY DON’T WANT US ESCAPING! THE WACHOWSKIS EXPOSED THE SECRET AND THEY’RE REMOVING OUR ESCAPE WAKE UP SHEEPLE!!!
Or into Psyren!
Touch tone? Man, that’s a new one.
Tried to put some money in it with apple pay and it didn’t work. Must have been turned off.
Someone knocked over an old pay phone near me and I’m tempted to steal it
*rescue
Please… Before it’s too late…
If you have or can borrow a white pickup truck or van, and wear a hi-vis vest, nobody will ask any questions.
Nobody would probably ask any questions anyway, but it wouldn’t hurt
Steal it and then get it working again. Wire it up to Bluetooth so that it rings when your cell phone rings (and of course that includes the dialer so that you can make outbound calls too).
Is this the set of The Matrix?
There’s a funny moment in one of the first Superman movies where Clark Kent turns toward what he expects to be a phone booth and is confronted with something more like this. I think he darts into an alley.
Weirdest thing about payphones was that they went from common use, to… gone. Couldn’t put a date on it, but at some point I realized there weren’t any. How am I supposed to call this number on my pager! (Speaking of tech that disappeared overnight)
I still use a pager!
I work in a facility where we can’t have cell phones, so if i need to be reached, i get a sweet sweet page. Its different now though, you just text it and the text shows up. I cant respond to it on my pager, but you can tell me what you need and i can go find my phone to reply.
That’s pretty cool. I wonder if doctors use those too now.
I mean my facility still uses pagers alongside mobile numbers and internal dect phones. Pagers are still essential when you need to notify several departments or staff suddenly (i.e a bat phone, code crimson, internal emergencies). You can send custom texts to pagers as well but I only ever used it on night shift to text when the Macca orders arrived.
Pretty sure doctors just use cell phones
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I mean, I’m over 30 and I never used a payphone in my life
I’m just under 30 myself and used payphones as a kid. Granted this was in a very small town so a little behind the rest of the country. Althougg they certainly weren’t THAT common even.
Those of us in tiny towns, especially if poor, really were from a different timeline than others in big cities or wealth in the same year.
There’s actually an internet phone booth near here that you can still use.
Better bring that shit back for those of us that plan to shun technology in the future
Yes, down with technology! If all-natural, organic payphones were good enough for our hunter-gatherer ancestors, they’re good enough for us.
