Oh, to live again in 1995! The year of peak payphone and working red boxes. It was glorious, but sadly lives on only in our memories: https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/pay-phones-coming-back...

"The stark shift happened fast; in 1995, the number of pay phones in the U.S. peaked at 2.6 million, Slate reported in 2022. In less than three decades, that's dwindled to fewer than 100,000."

What’s amazing to me to think about is how getting a free long distance call itself was a cool achievement then. (I’m aware that like all hacking, phreaking was in large part about the challenge rather than like “theft of service” but still.) I am old enough to remember that world for sure, and since we were poor long distance DID seem like a luxury good when I was a kid! But it’s just funny today since anyone who wants a voice call with anyone on earth, they can have one for free with like 30 different mainstream “apps.”