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Comment by arximboldi | Hacker News Reader

As someone that tries to survive (every day more difficult) with just a dumbphone with me, I just fantasized about a parallel universe where all those kiosks still existed, and they were somehow like computer that you can briefly rent, to do the things people do with a smartphone. Perhaps you tap a card, and it picks your accounts, and you can quickly Whatsapp someone, check your email, call an Uber or use Google Maps (maybe even check hacker news, but with time limit?!)

Maybe then many people would stop carrying their own portals, as you can briefly use the public ones for the one-off situation where you need it, but enjoy a portal-free mind the rest of the time. Also quite useful in case emergencies as it seems those portable-portals tend to run out of battery, or get lost or damaged...

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There was a brief moment around the turn of the millennium where that was what some of us were expecting. I was in college just after that and there were some free Internet kiosks, which combined with the ubiquitous free-to-use computer labs on campus, did a pretty good job of making this type of lifestyle possible, to the extent you could store your important documents online (much harder though in a pre-Dropbox, pre-Google Docs world!). Or another thing that was a big trend then was Portable Apps. On a flash drive on your keychain, you'd have installs of apps that you needed, together with their data and whatever documents you might need.

There was a brief period before that where some airports had pay phones with text terminals and modems built in, so you could dial up your corporate email or CompuServe. I swear I did not dream this.

“They have phones in booths now? Finally! I don’t have to lug this cell phone around.”

Hermes Conrad, Futurama Season 6, Episode 6: Lethal Inspection

a parallel universe where all those kiosks still existed, and they were somehow like computer that you can briefly rent, to do the things people do with a smartphone

In the early days of the Internet, this existed somewhere in western Europe where I was traveling.

There was a phone booth down the block from my hotel and a couple of times I popped in and used it to check my email.

Maybe Vienna or Amsterdam? It was a long time ago. Swiping one's own credit card would have been unusual then, so I have no idea how I paid for it. Especially since I mostly used travelers checks.

For a moment they put phones that had the ability to do text messages in them (but still looked very ordinary), which feels a little retro futuristic.

Looked better than the weird ad screen monstrosities you get now with a token phone on them.

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