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Note that * 69 may have incurred a per-call or monthly charge, as it was introduced during the era when phone companies would nickel-and-dime their customers fo

Note that * 69 may have incurred a per-call or monthly charge, as it was introduced during the era when phone companies would nickel-and-dime their customers for every "new" feature (for values of "new" less than 20 years old). That was roughly between the minute following "Watson, I need you," and the minute after cable television companies started offering VoIP triple-play. (To be reintroduced with mobile text messaging and data charges, of course!) This sort of business practice curtailed the adoption of a lot of useful features, Caller ID included. There were a lot of people still using rotary pulse dialing in the 80s, because the telcos charged a higher monthly price for DTMF touch-tone dialing.

hinkley 7y ago
I worked in mobile for a while pre smartphone and we were talking one day about stupid patents (filing wireless patents for the same tech that had expired patents in wired equipment) and weird fees and somebody asserted that in the diaspora after Ma Bell got trust-busted, a lot of those executives ended up at mobile carriers, using the same bag of tricks. This explained quite a lot. When I left the industry, I left because all the profits went to the carriers and all the risk to us. From my perspective, VC money was funding the telcos. But an earlier thing that left a bad taste in my mouth was that the teclos were trying to white-label phones from then-unknowns like HTC (who ISTR was already white-labelling for Motorola and Nokia?) so that they didn't have to negotiate with the manufacturers over tech and prices. You would get exactly what the carrier wanted you to have and not one bit more. This was just when the Razr phone had its first price drop, and rumors of the iPhone were beginning. This is definitely one time when a Cult of Personality saved us from something much worse.
- hinkley 7y ago
  It's still a little weird for me to see people complain about how Apple keeps 30% of the profits. Before the app store it was the other way around - you got to keep 30% of the profits, and pay for your own advertising out of that. The buzz among small mobile companies at that time was huge. Finally, they had a way to turn a profit. That fee structure was probably more pivotal to the mass exodus to iOS apps than any particular qualities of the platform. That was only 10 years ago.

hinkley 7y ago

I worked in mobile for a while pre smartphone and we were talking one day about stupid patents (filing wireless patents for the same tech that had expired patents in wired equipment) and weird fees and somebody asserted that in the diaspora after Ma Bell got trust-busted, a lot of those executives ended up at mobile carriers, using the same bag of tricks. This explained quite a lot. When I left the industry, I left because all the profits went to the carriers and all the risk to us. From my perspective, VC money was funding the telcos. But an earlier thing that left a bad taste in my mouth was that the teclos were trying to white-label phones from then-unknowns like HTC (who ISTR was already white-labelling for Motorola and Nokia?) so that they didn't have to negotiate with the manufacturers over tech and prices. You would get exactly what the carrier wanted you to have and not one bit more. This was just when the Razr phone had its first price drop, and rumors of the iPhone were beginning. This is definitely one time when a Cult of Personality saved us from something much worse.

hinkley 7y ago
It's still a little weird for me to see people complain about how Apple keeps 30% of the profits. Before the app store it was the other way around - you got to keep 30% of the profits, and pay for your own advertising out of that. The buzz among small mobile companies at that time was huge. Finally, they had a way to turn a profit. That fee structure was probably more pivotal to the mass exodus to iOS apps than any particular qualities of the platform. That was only 10 years ago.