When the phones were still attached to a cable, the people could walk more free.
Can still do that if you want to, and it is still spectacular.
I can’t even hang up my office desk phone by hammering the receiver disconnect button with my finger anymore, the receiver has a sensor that detects it is close to the cradle.
Technology has gone too far.
I worked in a place where you dialed in to the PA system, and NOT using your finger to hang up was a rookie move, since the rattling of the receiver was deafening over the speakers. Definitely worse to use a sensor.
The bigger issue is you can’t call the customer an asshole as your hang up the receiver after having already pressed the button to disconnect the call. Now you have to pause the profanity for a few extra moments.
If that ain’t the definition of enshittification then I don’t know what is.
It’s just stripping our lives away!
You still can. Nowadays it shows you really mean it!
And when you do, you rattle the bells inside so it makes a ding.
I remember angrily soaking the numbers and waiting for the stuoid dial circle thing to return to the middle so you could get the next button.
I also remember me and my buddies throwing our flip phones at each other or the ground and shit, not as a novelty but because those things were just indestructible. It was more of a danger to who you were throwing it at than to itself. Safer to throw a rock at your friend than those phones in most cases.
Civilization at its peak.
“Don’t slam the damn phone”
Ma Bell phones were built like tanks. Much tougher than the famously tough Nokia bricks.
Harry, it’s an inanimate fucking object.