> I wonder how people felt about handing all their personal photos over to a stranger just so they can get developed and printed, back in the 1990s. By today's standards, that would be incredibly creepy. But everyone did it because... having photos is pretty awesome.

This had its own set of norms associated with it: people would not take in photos that could be considered "indecent". Possibly by the extremely conservative standards of your local chemist. Then Polaroid invented a camera where you didn't have to submit your photos to the judging eye of someone else ...

Anyone who's worked in a photo lab before will tell you that "norm" gets ignored all the time. Some people just do not think about the fact that an actual human is going to see their BDSM photos with the secretary.

What would they do with the indecent photos then?

Not take them in the first place, develop them at home or a private lab, or use Polaroids.

I worked in a photography store in Italy in the summer 30 years ago or so. That's not always what was happening.

Neither I nor anyone else working there ever looked at anyone's private pictures, but the guy delivering them from the lab would sometimes joke about or allude to customers' photos, always from some other store. Even as a kid, I found that troubling. It also made me wonder what he told other stores about our clients' pictures.

Photo labs have been around way before the 90's and lots of people still use them.