Where I live, not only do they still exist, but they're also free to use and occasionally also offer free wifi. Why? No idea tbh, my guess is the government contract probably required the provider to keep them working for a certain amount of time.
this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2025
785 points (98.2% liked)
Microblog Memes
11052 readers
1892 users here now
A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.
Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.
RULES:
- Your post must be a screen capture of a microblog-type post that includes the UI of the site it came from, preferably also including the avatar and username of the original poster. Including relevant comments made to the original post is encouraged.
- Your post, included comments, or your title/comment should include some kind of commentary or remark on the subject of the screen capture. Your title must include at least one word relevant to your post.
- You are encouraged to provide a link back to the source of your screen capture in the body of your post.
- Current politics and news are allowed, but discouraged. There MUST be some kind of human commentary/reaction included (either by the original poster or you). Just news articles or headlines will be deleted.
- Doctored posts/images and AI are allowed, but discouraged. You MUST indicate this in your post (even if you didn't originally know). If an image is found to be fabricated or edited in any way and it is not properly labeled, it will be deleted.
- Absolutely no NSFL content.
- Be nice. Don't take anything personally. Take political debates to the appropriate communities. Take personal disagreements & arguments to private messages.
- No advertising, brand promotion, or guerrilla marketing.
RELATED COMMUNITIES:
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Ah man. This kind of shit makes me feel old dammit.
I had a payphone booth close to my house that I somehow got the actual number of, meaning you could call that booth. I used it to communicate secretly with my GF at the time, to keep my parents from knowing (this was before cellphones).
Great, now I'm reminded of a project I abandoned and the pile of weird business cards I have in my junk drawer...
I set up a toll-free number a year or so back with the idea of finding (eventually) all remaining payphones in public spaces in my city, white listing the numbers and leaving a card inviting folks to call. I stopped after about a week and like 10 phones, meaning to get back to it and never did.
Did run into people legitimately using them while doing so though, which was slightly unexpected.
You have a call from "mom come get me" would you like to accept the charges?
as a kid i had a phone card. they were introduced the year i was born and by the time i was eight, the payphones no longer took cash.
turns out, when living out in the country there aren't that many payphones either. i could call home from school, which was a few towns over from where i lived, or from the bus terminal which was in yet another town even further away. it was a strange time, but we made it work for like seven years.
In my city there is only 1 payphone (that I know off) and it is literally just used as a decoration. Like red box for 1 person. It probably had it's use in the past, but now is mere decoration in city centre.
load more comments
(2 replies)
If someone is legitimately asking this, they’re a fucking idiot. As a GenX there were tons of stuff that was outdated by the time I was around, but not once was there reason to believe it was made up.
I’d imagine the large majority of these “I’m so young! I don’t know what a pager is!” Is just typical “look at me!” Bullshit.
Especially considering that this dumbass has the entire world’s worth of information at their fingertips and could easily just shut up and google it if they were actually wanting to know.
Man, I do really love a lot of the internet culture, but this shit I wish never happened. The whole fake meme conversation… it’s so incredibly cringey and embarrassing.
From what I could tell, the Bluesky OP had a private conversation with the younger fellow who simply just wanted to find out something from someone they might personally know.
It isn't wrong to ask someone a question which could be easily googleable since the question is simply a way to converse and find out more about the person you're questioning.
If they really are someone who just seeks attention, they'd just make ragebait about this topic publicly.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Matt Damon aging meme.
They're still pretty common in Japan
I wouldn't exactly say common. I really needed one when I was in Tokyo about 10 years back and had a hell of a time finding one. And in the countryside you can pretty much forget about it these days
load more comments
(1 replies)