They were never common. They were mostly business tools, and consumers never wanted them. Sometimes you'd be required to send someone a fax, and you'd have to go to an office store. (And pay rather a lot; dollars per page.)
I hope you get to give one a try some day, for kicks, but the thrill will wear off fast.
Are you sure about that? I remember we had one at home when I grew up, so I assumed they were very common at the time. (And it's not like we had this crazy business driven family use of it.)
> I never saw one in a TV show
Now that you mention it, I think I only remember one from the simpsons.
But based on [1] my mom really was an outlier for getting a fax machine. Mabye we had enough contact with beurocracy to make it work it. :D Even in 1995 only 1.5 million out of 36 million (4,1%) households had one. (Although I remember it from ~2000, so too bad the data doesn't go there.)
For the US with 14 million out of 98 million households (14%) fax machines were more popular for ordinary households than in germany. (But home-use was never the issue in the fax debate anyway, just fun facts :) )
[1] https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/report...
Next day, the books would arrive. This was maybe 1996, but I thought it was pretty cool.
Maybe you can relate to seeing webcams or Facetime when it came out or something.
Being able to see a signed document or a picture someone took 5000km away quickly was mind boggling in its age.