• almar_quigley@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    31
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    3 months ago

    This data is decidedly not beautiful. The scale of the graph is the wrong one and should be logarithmic as stated in other comments. The price didn’t drop to 0 in the 80’s….

    • jonne@infosec.pub
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      21
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      3 months ago

      You can use the internet these days to call anyone for free, with video even.

      • ladicius@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        3 months ago

        Downloads free app and login to a free wi-fi, that’s all. Even if you need to buy the hardware the cheapest junk phone will suffice.

        • LesserAbe@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          3 months ago

          Tele for “far off”, phone for “voice”. I think internet calls count as telephone calls. Naturally this chart could not show separate pricing for Internet telephone calls in 1940.

          • BeardedBlaze@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            4
            ·
            3 months ago

            This chart literally only goes up to 1981, and specifically refers to phone calls. Internet still isn’t commonly available everywhere in the world, or US for that matter.

            • LesserAbe@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              2 months ago

              The original post was about how it’s cheap to make long distance calls now versus in the past. That’s true! In that spirit I don’t see any benefit to distinguishing between analog and digital calls. But point taken about the time axis on the chart.

        • jonne@infosec.pub
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          edit-2
          3 months ago

          The technology used in 1915 was completely different from what the phone network is now, but essentially it’s still voice being carried from one device to another over a distance. You can still pay for international calls if you like, though, if you insist it absolutely has to be non-voip.

        • Albbi
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          3 months ago

          WiFi calling gives free phone calls.

      • mhague@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        3 months ago

        They still had them in California as of a month ago. I always saw their setups around my city. You could get a phone and a tablet, but the tablet might have been tied to certain provider or your benefits (EBT/snap/etc)

        • Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          3 months ago

          They didn’t but you could hook em up to free wifi which you could use to make free calls with apps like WhatsApp, skype, Facebook, etc.

  • Eheran@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    edit-2
    3 months ago

    London <-> San Francisco is missing. The caption is a lie. It should have said something like “between New York and both London and San Francisco”.

    Also they obviously need a log scale. Like how can you not see that?