There was a time when making a phone call to a person who was two states away would cost you a week's pay. I can clearly remember paying a phone bill a few decades ago for one month of use that exceeded what I paid for my current phone usage over the last year.
One phone call I made when I lived in Alaska, this would have been in the early '90's, would have bought over 250 shares of stock in Apple computer. Today, twenty years later, we're talking about well over $100,000 for those same shares.
Makes you sick, eh?
Using the phone back then was the equivalent of using wet clay tablets to record business transactions a few thousand years ago. All you could share were words, spoken words. No texts, no pictures, no short 8gb movies, internet feeds or website sharing. No emoticons.
You had to say what you meant to say, and say it how you wanted it said, without the luxury of composing a well thought out text. It was very...personal, very intimate. Very prone to mistakes.
Tonight I talked for almost an hour to a friend who lives 2000 miles away. Before the conversation we sent each other a few pictures and asked each other a few questions.
And it cost less than what I make in a fraction of an hour. My phone costs me less than $2.50 a day, no matter what I do - I can even tether my laptop to it and use it as a WiFi hotspot! $2.50 a day.
I can forgive science for the lack of a jetpack or flying car. Today's tomorrow is wonderful.
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