How old are you?
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How old are you?
While I understand what you're going for here, I suspect asking this question on the fediverse is going to skew the results somewhat.
Like, I am sure there are folks here who would drive two hours out of their way to use a rotary pay phone.
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While I understand what you're going for here, I suspect asking this question on the fediverse is going to skew the results somewhat.
Like, I am sure there are folks here who would drive two hours out of their way to use a rotary pay phone.
@IrrationalMethod The results are definitely going to be skewed.
It's funny to me, because when I first found the Fedi and Mastodon back in 2018, I operated under the mistaken assumption that the demographic here is much younger than me (I'm 56).
Over time, I discovered that many Mastodonians are my age or older.
There are far more AARP members here than I originally thought. 🤪
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How old are you?
@galacticstone What about "just old enough to see a touch-dial payphone in my village but it got torn down before i was old enough to use it"?
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How old are you?
@galacticstone @rysiek and I still have a card for one somewhere - my mate was an amateur photographer and won a competition to get their picture on a card whilst we were in school.
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@IrrationalMethod The results are definitely going to be skewed.
It's funny to me, because when I first found the Fedi and Mastodon back in 2018, I operated under the mistaken assumption that the demographic here is much younger than me (I'm 56).
Over time, I discovered that many Mastodonians are my age or older.
There are far more AARP members here than I originally thought. 🤪
Tiktok: "look at this cool thing I found in the back of this restaurant, it's like an old cell phone, but it's mounted to the wall, it only makes calls
and you share it with other people!"Reddit: "help, wtf is this thing?"
Mastodon: "oh cool. That's the unique one that was made by Western Electric to supports both pulse dialing and tone dialing depending on the jumper behind the keypad. The logo is for a phone company that went bankrupt after 3 months and is now part of Verizon. I have three of them in my living room."
Facebook: "oh the good old days! I still can't believe Obama banned payphones!"
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@galacticstone I'm so old, I've used a payphone (in rural Scotland) which still had button A and button B!
@NormanDunbar @galacticstone I remember those! Bugger, that’s given the game away. ALRIGHT I’M OLD!!
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How old are you?
@galacticstone "Babe, wake up, a new age check just dropped."
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Tiktok: "look at this cool thing I found in the back of this restaurant, it's like an old cell phone, but it's mounted to the wall, it only makes calls
and you share it with other people!"Reddit: "help, wtf is this thing?"
Mastodon: "oh cool. That's the unique one that was made by Western Electric to supports both pulse dialing and tone dialing depending on the jumper behind the keypad. The logo is for a phone company that went bankrupt after 3 months and is now part of Verizon. I have three of them in my living room."
Facebook: "oh the good old days! I still can't believe Obama banned payphones!"
All of these users are middle-aged millennials, at least in my head, but the age doesn't matter.
I have used a touch tone payphone, but it was never a regular part of my life.
(I am a middle aged millennial, but I don't have any pay phones in my living room - I am fairly certain I have more than one mutual here who does.)
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All of these users are middle-aged millennials, at least in my head, but the age doesn't matter.
I have used a touch tone payphone, but it was never a regular part of my life.
(I am a middle aged millennial, but I don't have any pay phones in my living room - I am fairly certain I have more than one mutual here who does.)
Would you like to purchase a pay phone? I have one.
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Would you like to purchase a pay phone? I have one.
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Is it in your living room?
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All of these users are middle-aged millennials, at least in my head, but the age doesn't matter.
I have used a touch tone payphone, but it was never a regular part of my life.
(I am a middle aged millennial, but I don't have any pay phones in my living room - I am fairly certain I have more than one mutual here who does.)
@IrrationalMethod @galacticstone I have got only one, and it's in the breakfast nook
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Is it in your living room?
It’s in the kitchen.
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It’s in the kitchen.
This decreases my confidence that I have more than one mutual with a pay phone in their living room, but I still put the probability at >50%.
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Tiktok: "look at this cool thing I found in the back of this restaurant, it's like an old cell phone, but it's mounted to the wall, it only makes calls
and you share it with other people!"Reddit: "help, wtf is this thing?"
Mastodon: "oh cool. That's the unique one that was made by Western Electric to supports both pulse dialing and tone dialing depending on the jumper behind the keypad. The logo is for a phone company that went bankrupt after 3 months and is now part of Verizon. I have three of them in my living room."
Facebook: "oh the good old days! I still can't believe Obama banned payphones!"
@IrrationalMethod @galacticstone there is a coffee shop about half an hour from me that has a fake payphone in a decorated booth entirely for social media selfies.
I was very disappointed
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@IrrationalMethod @galacticstone there is a coffee shop about half an hour from me that has a fake payphone in a decorated booth entirely for social media selfies.
I was very disappointed
Thank you, I was going to expand on the joke , I am certain that is Instagram summed up.
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How old are you?
@galacticstone this makes people from behind the iron curtain look old
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Tiktok: "look at this cool thing I found in the back of this restaurant, it's like an old cell phone, but it's mounted to the wall, it only makes calls
and you share it with other people!"Reddit: "help, wtf is this thing?"
Mastodon: "oh cool. That's the unique one that was made by Western Electric to supports both pulse dialing and tone dialing depending on the jumper behind the keypad. The logo is for a phone company that went bankrupt after 3 months and is now part of Verizon. I have three of them in my living room."
Facebook: "oh the good old days! I still can't believe Obama banned payphones!"
Twitter user still on X: "I wrote about why Obama let phone companies abandon their pay phones and what that means for the future of Democracy. Read it in the Atlantic!"
Bluesky: "read this interesting article I came across in the Atlantic about how payphones will help us in 2028!"
LinkedIn: "I'm proud to announce my new start up to help deliver telecommunications to the unphoned. We discovered an unmet market of people who can't afford the latest iPhone so we are going to install booths in third spaces that rent access by the minute."
HackerNews, same user: "check out this new startup revolutionizing communication using crypto and AI! I got it all going this weekend thanks to Claude"
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How old are you?
My husband had one of those party line phones in their house. Tech moves fast.
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This decreases my confidence that I have more than one mutual with a pay phone in their living room, but I still put the probability at >50%.
The problem with me buying a pay phone is I either need to get a VoIP line and set up a PBX, or I need to start buying old telephone exchange rack mount equipment.
The first sounds like a nightmare, and the second will end up in my basement with my kid cursing me to eternal damnation after I pass away.
