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Comment by chi17 | Hacker News Reader

Payphones could make a comeback, and the "payphone" was really a public videophone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-YBYzo4XUY

    Deckard calls Rachael on a public videophone.

from script: http://www.trussel.com/bladerun.htm

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Public videophones could be made right now, if we wanted. Problem is that nobody wants them because they are less convenient than the simpler alternatives.

The simpler alternatives involve having to pay a monthly fee or having to pre-pay for minutes. In the future, perhaps we won't have the luxury of paying for a lot of service we haven't yet used and might not need to use.

Welcome to the present, called "the rest of the world that's not the US" ;)

(yeah, yeah, I know that many countries still have outrageous prices for networks, be it fiber or mobile).

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