Oh man. I have a nostalgia for old cellphones like the Nokia or flip phones, but not the cell plans. There was initially no internet, but when it showed up it was super limited data. Limited texts. Limited minutes. But you could get free texts and calls after a certain time of day, like 5 or 6 in the evening. Plans were expensive. If you went over your allotment of texts it was a ridiculous fee like 25¢ or 50¢ a text. Same for call minutes. You were constantly clock and usage watching. I got one bill for almost $500. Ouch.
Man, of only Wet Ass Pussy existed back in those days, I feel like actually finding porn on a .WAP site would have been incredibly easy.
I had a Razr myself; after having a Sidekick. Going back to that shitty mobile web browsing experience fucking sucked. Even if you managed to find boobs on it, they’re gonna be low resolution and lack a lot of color.
Unless the dude means the smartphone remake of the Razr? Or he used the OG even after the iPhone came out? He said he racked up a data bill but, like… They didn’t have “data” service back then. They had talk and text. Maybe 3 or 4 phones even had real internet stuff for power users, and it was slow as fuck because you’re using the incredibly slow cell network.
Ooh this is a real one, I lost my cybervirginity in a IRC chat before I even cared about losing my IRL one. In fact I was a bit late on that one (19 y/o)
I guess it tracks that the type of person who would beat their son over an internet bill would also beat their dog. Some people have no business having kids or pets.
One kid paid for a copy of Playboy with seventy five pennies he’d saved up.
Military kids knew when ‘snap’ inspections would be carried out. They’d warn the troops, who would hide their porn and beer in the woods. Then the kids would search out the stashes and abscond.
I remember my friends phone numbers from the 80’s, and I have no idea what their numbers are now. Like I don’t even know a single digit in their new numbers. I’ve never even seen the numbers. We tapped our phones together, and I magically had their contact card.
I had a -3k rubles bill when they were like 30:$1 for browsing supposedly free services from my mobile carrier. Dad didn’t touch me, but the look in his eyes was more painful than that. It was a great lesson in not trusting random ads and free stuff.
Maybe? My generation (millenial) had troubles with many kids lacking fathers who ghosted them or disappeared completely and not being educated by a combo of a mother and gramps. I feel lucky I had a complete family and one that was liberal enough to not touch me at all. Many of my friends didn’t have that favor. A soulcrushing amount of them had just a mom, one that was depressed enough to scream at them and beat them when they didn’t toe the line. Today it seems better in general, but less pairs even agree to have a child in this economy.
it was quantumlink (aol's predecessor, for the c64) chat rooms for me. dad was long gone by then. qlink was linked to my own bank account, so i felt it in a different way. for 'porn' the most accessible thing was a simple hack for c64 strip poker so they started out nekked.
Also when you do cap the line, it would make a lot more sense to make the limit dynamic and local.
As in: “you’re hogging the connection, let’s take a break for now” - and not: “you watched a movie in HD and forgot you weren’t on wifi. The logical thing to do is to cut your entire mobile internet connection for a full month, unless you pay us extortion money”
International calls are only expensive if you don’t know what you’re doing. Just use WhatsApp or any other VoIP provider. Who are you calling on landlines anyway?
Hint for those visiting a foreign country: just get a weekly data plan for like $8 and use Google Voice or WhatsApp to call home. Need an unlocked phone for that though.
That is good advice for visiting most countries, America it’s crazily complex and expensive to get a phone especially if you don’t have an address and American ID. It was cheaper to buy a cheap phone in the UK and connect to someone with decent roaming charges than it was to get a phone in the US
Ah, fond memories of tying up the house phone line all weekend for a 48 hour non-stop Starcraft marathon over AOL, getting pings on battle.net that were embarrassing then but are probably considered warcrimes today.
I played Descent against my friend by dialing into his computer directly. Worked amazingly well considering the specs of the machines. We had a rule that if he got disconnected because his mom picked up the phone we'd have to restart the match.
(I was already so chronically online by that time my parents had sprung for a second phone line.)
It’s amazing any real-time gaming worked with all that latency.
I routinely played Quake 2 with 200-300ms ping. I had to abandon hitscan weapons entirely, relying on rockets and grenades to do any damage. I never dominated any pub matches, but I usually wasn’t dead last either. Anyway, forcing that much latency on gamers nowadays is disallowed under multiple UN sanctions.
I rang up over a thousand dollars in charges for using a number outside of my local exchange, which was at the time considered long distance (same area code). I had spent a couple days camping out in an IRC channel.
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