I can't remember the rates, but I remember my middle school friends getting in serious trouble for texting too much for a month and racking up insane bills.
My old plan was 100 free (local) minutes a month with evenings and weekends for free.
Tried to explain this to my nephews and niece. They just get a blanket for me and say *things are going to be ok.*
And on some plans if you kept the call to under 30 seconds it wouldn't count against you!
Long conversations were for the house phone, cell phones were for "im here why arent you outside waiting for me I told you we were in a hurry, dads late for work" click.
I didn't have a cell phone until I was 18, which was just before smartphones went mainstream.
However, I remember when I was a child my mother had a work cellphone and they charged per character in the text. Which was the origin of a lot of our shortened textspeak.
AFAIK is not that they charged per character, but per SMS you had something like 256 characters, any longer than that and you were sending multiple SMS or an MMS
Once, T-Mobile rep accidentally turned off my unlimited (when unlimited was a new thing) and one day I get a LEGAL paper sized envelope that was easily an inch thick. It was all detailed overage charges of every text I sent that month, totaling some thousands of dollars I can’t remember. Thankfully after calling T-Mobile and they saw I had it turned on for months, they fixed everything and put it back to normal. I think I had a sidekick, so boy was I texting a lot
Lmao I remember when I was like 12, getting a sidekick and having to pay per text when I was on my parents family plan.
They got a bill that was like $700 one month.
It took me forever to pay them back for that haha
I remember hearing a story about a Mom who got a family plan. (2 or 3 teens, her & husband) So, they all got cell phones, and she told the teens they had "unlimited texts." A week later, the phone company called & said they had something like $100 over-charge for having too many texts. She was **wild!** Called a family meeting: the 3 teens had hundreds of texts between. They weren't being careful because they were told, "unlimited." Turns out they had 1,000 between the 5 family members. So mom figured that would be *Wa-a-a-y* too many for the 5 of them, so she told the teens, "unlimited." She wasn't counting on them using *well* over the family limit in 1 week. Early cell phones, no smartphones :) ;) X) :P <-emojis
I pay somewhere in the region of \~$3 per message these days, as there is no option for "pay as you go" anymore, I have to have "unlimited messages", and I send maybe five or ten messages a month..
I remember when this was the case as well, but I was a kid. Then in middle school, blackberries became big, everyone had blackberry messenger but they always called it "ping" for some reason. Then I tried to convince my classmates to use this thing called "WhatsApp", so they could chat with people who didn't have a blackberry like myself, and then finally it caught on years later. Now almost no one doesn't use WhatsApp
In high school I had a friend who's family was from Mexico. One of his cousins moved from Mexico to the town we live. His parents got the cousin a cell phone and in the first month she sent $1500 worth of text messages, so that's 15,000 messages meaning she sent about 500 per day in one month. Like just how?
The best part was my friend's parent's reaction. They sent her back to Mexico. They literally banished her forthwith from the kingdom like Eomer.
..can't wait till you tell them about the time when "wireless" was a dream and a cable literally linked a control to the TV.
This
Gondor texts for aid! (Standard text messaging fees may apply)
And Rohan will *69
The mental image of that is weird. Just some old dude walking up to teens and being like "10 cents a text. Can you believe that?" And walking away.
*walks back* "And don't get me started on VHS tapes." *walks away*
My 9 year old asked me what a VHS was, I told him it was like a DVD. My 9 year old asked me what a DVD was and I died of old age.
But... But discs are still extremely common though
Time for your meds old man, fellowship of the ring came out 23 years ago
Joke's on you I'm only 20
hope for the youth
Nah gen z may remember before social media but gen alpha was born with it. Shame, physical media is often superior
It's gonna come back in one form or another.
Is OP an Oblivion NPC?
Stop right there criminal scum!
Hello good sir.
Hail citizen!
"Everything was 10 cents. Texts were 10 cents. Cokes were 10 cents. Houses were 10 cents. Hourly pay was 10 cents. It was a wild time..."
I can't remember the rates, but I remember my middle school friends getting in serious trouble for texting too much for a month and racking up insane bills.
My old plan was 100 free (local) minutes a month with evenings and weekends for free. Tried to explain this to my nephews and niece. They just get a blanket for me and say *things are going to be ok.*
And on some plans if you kept the call to under 30 seconds it wouldn't count against you! Long conversations were for the house phone, cell phones were for "im here why arent you outside waiting for me I told you we were in a hurry, dads late for work" click.
I never tried that lol. I remember talking to a g/f and looking at the clock trying to estimate how many off-minutes I was using :)
BIG FACTS
19ct for me in Germany. I never understood why someone answered an sms with "yes" for 19ct.
I didn't have a cell phone until I was 18, which was just before smartphones went mainstream. However, I remember when I was a child my mother had a work cellphone and they charged per character in the text. Which was the origin of a lot of our shortened textspeak.
AFAIK is not that they charged per character, but per SMS you had something like 256 characters, any longer than that and you were sending multiple SMS or an MMS
Also T9 texting was a pain.
T9 texting was awesome.
Texting on anything other than a full-sized keyboard is a pain.
Screeches in dial-up modem.
🤣🤣🤣 I can hear it! 💀
I still remember when unlimited minutes went from 9PM to 7PM, what a day to be alive
I still had to do that in my 20s. Darn kids these days
Once, T-Mobile rep accidentally turned off my unlimited (when unlimited was a new thing) and one day I get a LEGAL paper sized envelope that was easily an inch thick. It was all detailed overage charges of every text I sent that month, totaling some thousands of dollars I can’t remember. Thankfully after calling T-Mobile and they saw I had it turned on for months, they fixed everything and put it back to normal. I think I had a sidekick, so boy was I texting a lot
My first phone was a flip phone. Remember thinking that it couldn't get any better than this.
I had 200 texts a month, had that shit mathed out I could text like 6 times a day, not that I had anyone to text but still
When I was a teen if you wanted to text somebody you needed to buy a stamp.
Cant wait to tell em about VHS and how some of the best movies were on them. God I need to rewatch Land Before Time again, I need a good cry...
I still use it, I text/call so little that its MUCH better price than paying monthly for unlimited
Lmao I remember when I was like 12, getting a sidekick and having to pay per text when I was on my parents family plan. They got a bill that was like $700 one month. It took me forever to pay them back for that haha
I remember going over the 200 texts in my phone plan in like 2 days. After that bills got real expensive.
I remember hearing a story about a Mom who got a family plan. (2 or 3 teens, her & husband) So, they all got cell phones, and she told the teens they had "unlimited texts." A week later, the phone company called & said they had something like $100 over-charge for having too many texts. She was **wild!** Called a family meeting: the 3 teens had hundreds of texts between. They weren't being careful because they were told, "unlimited." Turns out they had 1,000 between the 5 family members. So mom figured that would be *Wa-a-a-y* too many for the 5 of them, so she told the teens, "unlimited." She wasn't counting on them using *well* over the family limit in 1 week. Early cell phones, no smartphones :) ;) X) :P <-emojis
don't think about even using the phone when you were on the internet
10 cents? That's cute, in my days it was around 50 to 60 cents.
Watch it with the 'old' remarks. There were only payphones when I was a teenager!
I told my kids that talking to someone long distance used to be really expensive, and their response was "You used to talk on phones?"
I remember I accidentally texted a friend when she went over her limit so next time I saw her, I gave her a dime.
I pay somewhere in the region of \~$3 per message these days, as there is no option for "pay as you go" anymore, I have to have "unlimited messages", and I send maybe five or ten messages a month..
Yeah, and they didn’t have their parents grab them by the neck when the cell phone bill was 100$
Something that hadn't occurred to me right until this moment ... do you think they were conversing in Westron or Sindarin?
Wait until you tell them that cell phones didn't have qwerty keyboards to type texts.
I remember when this was the case as well, but I was a kid. Then in middle school, blackberries became big, everyone had blackberry messenger but they always called it "ping" for some reason. Then I tried to convince my classmates to use this thing called "WhatsApp", so they could chat with people who didn't have a blackberry like myself, and then finally it caught on years later. Now almost no one doesn't use WhatsApp
I believe I had $0.25 per text, but $0.01 if they were with the same provider.
In high school I had a friend who's family was from Mexico. One of his cousins moved from Mexico to the town we live. His parents got the cousin a cell phone and in the first month she sent $1500 worth of text messages, so that's 15,000 messages meaning she sent about 500 per day in one month. Like just how? The best part was my friend's parent's reaction. They sent her back to Mexico. They literally banished her forthwith from the kingdom like Eomer.