There's still a lot of payphones in my country. They're free now and no longer accept money and they also provide free wifi. Recently I've been seeing signs on them that kids can call Santa
this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2025
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Australia? My guess/ memory is that they earn more from advertising than the cost to maintain them. I think that's more dystopian. An ageing technology is allowed to keep using public spaces to advertise of they frame it as a public good.
Idk I don't mind that the very poor that don't have phones still have an option to make phone calls. I know a lot of victims of abuse use them as a way to make phone calls that aren't monitored by their abusive partner. The homeless can use them, or maybe your phone died. I don't recall seeing ads on them but I'm not exactly looking out for payphones.
Plus I'd hardly can a phone call "ageing technology". I mean yes it's an old technology, but still very relevant especially for those that don't have other means of contact
I thought poor people were given free government-paid smartphones? Anyone who qualifies for food stamps can get a free smartphone. Is that no longer a thing? Last time I checked that was around 2016 I guess.
Only if you are super poor enough to qualify, and have time and the capacity to jump through all the hoops to get one, and you live somewhere that there is a provider that has coverage, and ect, ect., then you can get a discount on your cell plan. For some people who are "lucky enough" to be super poor enough, the discount can actually be enough to make the phone essentially $0.
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I think they are still around because the government told them they can't remove them. They are considered a public resource. Remember, Telstra used to be a government entity before it was privatised.
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Recently I’ve been seeing signs on them that kids can call Santa
That's adorable :)
Which country? Are you restricted to where you can call? Like local calls only? I’m guessing they are VOIP though?
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And Superman doesn't have a place to change.
They made fun of that all the way back in Superman The Movie (1978)
Telephone booths were still pretty common until the early 90's
I thought it was a weird idea anyway, since every phonebooth I have ever seen is see-thru. Was there a time when they were just opaque boxes or something without any kind of window?
No, but the windows were smaller, scratched and usually rather dirty, esp in nyc.
They weren't designed for privacy. I'm guessing to was to protect against the elements.
Protect the phone, that is. Also enable you to hear and be heard. The clear glass was to prevent anyone hiding in there, for sex or drugs or ambush.
Supes can move so quickly he's all changed and his work suit is neatly folded and tucked into its pouch while anyone watching would just see a brief blur. But he'd rather nobody bumps into him while he's doing it.
What if you saw Kent go in and Superman come out? Wouldn't that be slightly suspicious?
I think part of the appeal was, every kid was thinking exactly that. "I would be the one who figured out Superman's secret identity!"
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Enclosed ones with doors?
Around here they were all little nooks at best.
in the UK, yeah -- all the way to the early 2000s you could get free shelter
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He'll simply have to jump into his TARDIS... wait, no. 🤪🦸
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It's gotten worse: People don't want to phone with their phone anymore.
Some people. Plenty still do
Watch the AniMatrix.
There are other ways... to get out.
... they are just exceptionally difficult to pull off, and can only be pulled off by exceptional individuals.
... ... and they also do not tend to involve a real world hovercraft crew waiting to retrieve your emaciated, atrophied and basically blind body.
You're on your own.
Usain Bolt slamming into the end of the track after that 100m, oof I get chills. And he's practically non-existent now, his true self left this world in 2009
Are they frame-perfect?
As in, frame perfect execution of some kind of set of inputs, like a speed runner would have to pull off?
No, not in the Matrix canon I can recall off the top of my head.
They're more focused on an... unwavering belief, or faith, in something.
Not any kind of technical, machine-like ability to execute a complex task, with high precision.
The point is being incredibly human in a way that is not machine-like, that's the way(s) out, not in trying to out machine a machine.
EDIT:
As the Architect says to Neo in Matrix 2:
Humph. Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.
They cannot fully account for, figure out a way to fully contain what you might call the human spirit, or irrational faith of some kind.
Neo's particular variant of this kind of irrational drive... is his love of Trinity.
... its rather sappy, actually, lol.
4 more or less inverts this, it is Trinity's love of Neo that ultimately saves/reawakens him.
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The only one I remember was the kid jumping off the building. What others were there?
I can’t believe there was never a scandal about the short that suggests you can leave “The Matrix” by jumping to your death.
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yeah but the earth was a better place to live then
Well, the Matrix previously simulated a utopia but the humans still rebelled. Then, the Matrix simulated 1999 Earth.
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Put down smartphone. Pick up dumb phone.
#2deep4me
If that were really the way out of the matrix, why would they let the secret out in a movie seen by hundreds of millions?
best way to debunk a narrative is to take control of it
Right. I have this conspiracy theory that the media and the government encourage UFO conspiracy theories so they can make them look nuts and crazy, so they are easily dismissed by the mainstream population. Same with the JFK assassination and a bunch of other stuff.
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I think the word for this is co-opt.
You don't 'debunk' it.
You put your people either in control of, or position them as massively influential figures within it, or coax such people over to your flavor of that kind of messaging.
co-bunk
de-optulate
Trin also slaps her hand against that phone booth’s glass milliseconds before being aerosolized by truck after the agents tracked her shit on a landline, making landlines just about (but not quite) the shittiest way to leave the matrix, but go on.
Pretty sure they could use a cellphone to jack out in Ressurections.
They used mirrors in that film
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Wasn't Neo mailed a Nokia 8110 to use?
that was to communicate. to actually leave they had to have a landline.
The payphones are still available in my country in case of emergencies. They were refurbished and less dirty than they were in the past. But funny enough, some payphones were converted as first aid stations. As much as our government can be deliberately inefficient and corrupt, they are good with adapting to changing times to keep some public services relevant. One thing I'm proud of is our postal service, which branched out to mobile network operator and banking to stay relevant.
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