2 ms·

Bullshit, talking to someone over the phone internationally used to cost tens of dollars per conversation. Now I can do a VIDEO call with my friends and family

• saltcured 4y ago
  It is technically true that one could use voice over IP to talk to someone long-distance over the internet before y2k. There were demos of this in the 1970s and 1980s starting on the original ARPANET. There were commercial software products to do this. By the mid 1990s there were open source tools like vic and vat to do audio and video conferencing over multicast. In 1999, the SIP protocol standard was released, and this represented working technology that had multiple implementations. In the mid 1990s, the telcos in the US were lobbying hard to ban VOIP because it was already obvious that this was going to disrupt their traditional long-distance toll business. So, I think this argument just reduces to the basic statement that you don't appreciate this nostalgia if you were not yourself enjoying the early internet. It is ironic that the article writer is thinking of an "old" internet from 2007 and later. I was among the horde who ruined the internet after Endless September, which references a turning point in 1993 when the old, rarified internet got sullied by the masses.