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Telecom is not more affordable today than it was in 1990. Back in 1990 the private phone line we shared at home for a family of 4 primarily to support connecti

by bcrl 2y ago

Telecom is not more affordable today than it was in 1990. Back in 1990 the private phone line we shared at home for a family of 4 primarily to support connecting to local BBSes and the internet cost $20/month, or roughly $48.65 in 2024 dollars. That $20 was enough to be able to send and receive email through Fidonet and UUCP, download software and connect to the local Freenet for internet access. Today's telecom spend is on the order of $250/month once a cell phone, landline (since there is no cell phone service here) and internet connection are all included. That's pretty much a factor of 5x increase in telecom spend required for a family of 4. Sure, we can do a lot more, but it's not cheaper when directly compared to the historic cost of telecommunications services. I don't think tech getting into power will make things better. Just look at what is happening in Texas and other parts of the world: grid operators have to pay bitcoin miners to turn off their farms when grid capacity is overwhelmed, which drives up cost for everyone. Depending on where data centers are located, construction of new transmission lines becomes necessary. All this increases the baseline operating cost of the grid. Personally, I don't want more AI generated content or timelines powered by AI driving toxic engagement because it gets more clicks. The "improvements" we're seeing now are beyond the point of diminishing returns. Tech will abuse any externalities that exist worth exploiting, and society will end up paying for it.

Clamchop 2y ago
Handwaving away all the additional utility seems unfair to me. These pipes are a lot fatter, more accessible than ever before, and there are many more ways to use them. Working from home, eliminating shopping trips, telehealth, video calls, online banking and bill pay, podcasts, maps, music, gaming, the list goes on and on. If you're "cord cutting" and not paying for cable TV anymore, then you likely still come out ahead even after folding a couple of streaming services into the mix. If all you have are 1990 expectations, then you should be able to make do with something for about $50/mo, maybe less. Either a cheap phone plan, or entry level internet and VOIP. And it'll still be leagues more useful. That private phone line you shared could only be used by the one computer in the household, if there even was a computer, which more often than not there wasn't, and when it was online, you couldn't take phone calls, which was more of a problem than now, because it was 1990. And we don't live in fear of our telephone bills like we used to. We don't charge long distance, by the minute, or per text. Data caps are annoying, but they're not life-changingly expensive, and hey, if you're living it up like it's 1990, you'll never get anywhere close to exceeding them anyway.

by bcrl 2y ago

Clamchop 2y ago

Handwaving away all the additional utility seems unfair to me. These pipes are a lot fatter, more accessible than ever before, and there are many more ways to use them. Working from home, eliminating shopping trips, telehealth, video calls, online banking and bill pay, podcasts, maps, music, gaming, the list goes on and on. If you're "cord cutting" and not paying for cable TV anymore, then you likely still come out ahead even after folding a couple of streaming services into the mix. If all you have are 1990 expectations, then you should be able to make do with something for about $50/mo, maybe less. Either a cheap phone plan, or entry level internet and VOIP. And it'll still be leagues more useful. That private phone line you shared could only be used by the one computer in the household, if there even was a computer, which more often than not there wasn't, and when it was online, you couldn't take phone calls, which was more of a problem than now, because it was 1990. And we don't live in fear of our telephone bills like we used to. We don't charge long distance, by the minute, or per text. Data caps are annoying, but they're not life-changingly expensive, and hey, if you're living it up like it's 1990, you'll never get anywhere close to exceeding them anyway.