RE: Phone Etiquette Should Change with Technology

It is interesting to see how phone technology changed culture. When I was in college it cost about $2 a minute to phone (I guess that is about $10 today's money). I would save up for a phone call. I would quickly say everything I had to say and try to keep the call under a minute.

I still feel this pressure when I am on calls.

Party Lines

There were still some party lines in rural areas when I was a kid. Come to think of it, there was still a party line serving the Outpost and along the river road in 2002. My friend was part of the crew that maintained it.

It is amazing how quickly things changed. In 1999, I worked for a company that developed VOIP. The company fell into crisis when we realized that calls had become too cheap to meter.

Essentially, There was a fixed tax per minute. The tax was nine times larger than the cost of the call. The company lost money because all it was doing was collecting and paying taxes.

It would be better to just charge a connection fee and let all of the calls be free.

I think we are now at a point where one can safely assume that people are on unlimited call plans. If we assume that calling is free, then we should change the way that we prioritize calls.