Zone1 Should the government bring back payphones?

[Grumblenuts]

Tart cards are often found in phone boxes in London advertising the services of call girls

Telephone booth - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Dr.Destructo]

I wouldn't tell them something like that regardless of whether I let them use my phone or not. It does put me in a rather difficult position though...particularly after dark. Someone could use a request like that to mask malicious intent.

I wish I could just point them to a payphone like I could back in the 1990s.

Just say NO.

It only takes 10 seconds or less for a hacker to place a spy app on your phone, so they can download all of your info on it.

Thats why I don't have ANY personal apps on my phone. My personal business is done on my home computer, not my phone.
If I lose my phone, I'm really just losing a phone, not my personal information...............other than my phone list. But I keep that on a backup file on my pc.

No bank info on my phone.
No personal info on my phone.
No work info on my phone.
Just apps for the phone itself, some security phone stuff, and a couple of phone games.

 

[toobfreak]

I hated the multi-factor authentication when they implemented it at work specifically because it requires a worker to have a smartphone on which to receive the text verification, at the worker's own expense. Now I understand more how it enhances security but I really disliked it in the beginning. I didn't even like having my phone available to me when working but you have to adjust otherwise crap like Crowdstrike occurs :-(

Unnecessary. It both requires you to own a cellphone even if you have no other need for it, and it requires you to pay extra for texting services, again, for no other reason, especially as THEY ALREADY HAD a system in place which gave you the third party notification over your standard landline.

 

[Sparker]

Landlines require more infrastructure maintenance. Cellphones require global supply chains. Rising costs of global shipping break the chains. Very basic landline phones may become more common for a while, where people have money for urban conveniences. I don't see government paying for much of the phone infrastructure beyond its own use in government buildings. The more rural areas may not have any phone service, maybe some telegraph or something low power and low tech.

 

[Nate99]

The government doesn't own the phone companies.

They sure don't...but they could make a deal with the phone companies to repair/replace the payphones that get vandalized.

 

[fncceo]

They sure don't...but they could make a deal with the phone companies to repair/replace the payphones that get vandalized.

So they can be vandalized again… this time, at the taxpayers expense.

 

[Deplorable Yankee]

I'd appreciate it if they would...then I might not have to deal with strangers asking me for permission to make a call on my phone.

The government should only implode and dissolve

 

[Nate99]

So they can be vandalized again… this time, at the taxpayers expense.

Yep...some of them would get vandalized a lot. In fact...maintaining one million payphones alone might cost the federal government over a billion dollars per year. I'd still be in favor of it.

 

[Grumblenuts]

In the nearly 250 years since Benjamin Franklin was appointed our first Postmaster General in 1775, the Postal Service has grown and changed with America, boldly embracing new technologies to better serve a growing population.

We need mail. We need phones. Who should we appoint as our first Telephonymaster General?

 

[fncceo]

We need mail. We need phones. Who should we appoint as our first Telephonymaster General?

We don’t need a postmaster … the private sector delivers mail faster and cheaper than the archaic USPS.

 

[Grumblenuts]

We don’t need a postmaster … the private sector delivers mail faster and cheaper than the archaic USPS.

Wow. So that's why most of my UPS shipped orders arrive via USPS!

 

[DakotaKai_fan20]

Yes. I would love for that to happen. I would put in a quarter to call someone who cares.

 

[MayorQuimby]

Case in point. Despite a large background in telecommunications, I have not had or wanted a cellphone for years. Damn things are always breaking and/or poor signal. But when I went to the store to pick up food, I found the grocery could not be bothered installing even a $5 buzzer to let them know you were there and I got tired of trying to flag someone down. Then recently, I started having trouble even ordering food on their website, or opening an email account, unless I not only HAD a cellphone, but with TEXT!

So now I had to add text to my cellphone account because many places when you log in with your account name and password now, want a THIRD confirmation to prove it is REALLY you (for their safety) by texting you a 6 number passcode (which they used to offer the option of calling you by automated voice and telling you over a simple landline but then took that option out too to further save money at customer's expense). And you cannot receive nor send a text message via a landline.

So you are pretty much screwed now unless you have a cellphone with text. It has become a necessity of living.

I had to get a cell phone, too. Technically it wasn't "forced" on me, but I simply had to get one just to access certain things like job postings, or to post ads and sign up on websites. It's similar in how the covid vaccines technically weren't forced on you but if you wanted to be able to do things you wanted to do, you had to get vaccinated. I think it's messed up.

As more and more people have cell phones, more and more websites will have a sign-up process that requires sending a text. Then, ever more people will have to get a cell phone, which only makes more companies think that requiring a text to sign up is fine. It's a cycle that reinforces itself.

 

[toobfreak]

I had to get a cell phone, too. Technically it wasn't "forced" on me, but I simply had to get one just to access certain things like job postings, or to post ads and sign up on websites.

So in effect, it IS being forced on you. Suddenly the world is acting like everyone is somehow born with a cellphone tied to their hip. As a REQUIREMENT to live, I think the government ought to be paying for them. I've never SENT a text, not even sure how, and it has been over a month since I even turned my phone on, meanwhile, the bills for it still just keep coming in.