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In reply to the discussion: Phrases you don't hear anymore: [View all]Wiz Imp
(2,347 posts)132. There are still pay phones in the US
but there are less than 100000 left.
https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/pay-phones-coming-back-free.htm
There Are Still Many Phoneless People
The slow death of the pay phone has been harder for some people than for others. Though the vast majority of Americans now own some kind of cell phone, there are still some including impoverished or unhoused people who depend on the availability of public pay phones.
In some cities, innovators are working to solve the problem. Futel is a project based in Portland, Oregon, that updates old pay phones to provide free calls and voicemail. It has eight outdoor, pay phone-style phones in Portland, plus one in Long Beach, Washington, and one each in Ypsilanti and Detroit, Michigan. "Denial of telephony services has long been a tactic used against undesirable populations," write Futel's founders, "and our devices will counteract that."
In Philadelphia, an "amateur phone collective" called PhilTel is doing more than just preserving old pay phones: They're installing new ones, minus the "pay" part. The project aims to create a network of phones that make free calls anywhere in North America.
though I guess if they're free, they're no longer payphones.
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Holy cow. Never understood it but but always thought cows somehow deserved a phrase like that.
dgauss
Yesterday
#8
I sold my Grand Baroque patterned sterling silver set I inherited from my mother. Nodody polishes silver any more.
CTyankee
19 hrs ago
#81
Some I wish I never heard again like "My Bad", calling a movie a "Flick", "Dude"
doc03
22 hrs ago
#32
Land o' Goshen! ... and "Republicans are the party of fiscal reasonability"
JohnnyRingo
22 hrs ago
#36
In college in the late sixties we actually made fun of ourselves by saying "farm out" and "out of state".....
EarnestPutz
12 hrs ago
#122