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French kids started doing this in the 1930s with the talking clock (a French invention BTW). The clock was basically a busbar: callers were all connected to the clock. When it was not speaking the time (at the minute) callers could speak and be heard by others. And it was a free call!

The phone system had switched to digital by the time I started using it so I never got to experience this, but in exchange I could use Minitel!

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That's brilliant! You reminded me of a story from my childhood.

This one time my neighbor rang my doorbell. I answered on the intercom.

We talked for a minute and were then both puzzled. "Why did you ring the bell?"

"I didn't ring the bell. You did!"

Turns out we were both in our apartments, and an unknown third party downstairs had rung both our bells at the same time.

This was how I discovered the doorbell intercom also functions as "bus" where all apartments can talk to each other. (It also blares your conversation onto the street downstrairs, though.)

See also: similar mid-20th-century Bell System phenomenon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beep_line

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