So please explain the relevance of mobile phones.

Where I lived, suburban United States, landlines were ubiquitous, and we used them all the time.

If you’re at home, you can answer the landline.

If you’re the person who is out, then you don’t have a landline to call. Or then have to make the decision while out to go and find a payphone and have correct change and put in money to make a call to see if the person is in, while the clock is frantically ticking on the call.

Like if you’re equidistant between your house and your friends house, it is also simpler to walk to theirs and find them rather than walk home, call them, check they’re in, and then walk to theirs anyway.

Also if you weren’t the person who paid the phone bill, it was often presented to you as a more parsimonious solution to use your feet rather than the telephone.

Another example is if you made a plan to meet somewhere at a specific time and the person didn’t turn up. You would have no clue about where they were or what happened even if you found a payphone and called their house and it rang out. You were still s.o.l. for the rest of the day so dealt with it.

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lapcat an hour ago | parent [-]

> If you’re the person who is out, then you don’t have a landline to call. Or then have to make the decision while out to go and find a payphone and have correct change and put in money to make a call to see if the person is in, while the clock is frantically ticking on the call.

You seem to be completely changing the situation. In this comment, you're talking about wanting to visit someone at home, whereas in your original comment, you're talking about not wanting to visit someone at home: "there’s fewer reasons to even go to someone’s house any more, you can just text them… or not even bother and check their socials to see what impression of a life they’re presenting today."

In other words, the mobile phone is a replacement for a home visit rather than a means for a home visit. (On the other hand, a laptop or desktop works just as well or better for checking social media. Indeed I'm currently typing on a laptop.)

It's true that mobile phones can make it easier than landlines to find out if someone is home, but if that's how people were using mobile phones, then you would expect more home visits, or at least more successful home visits.

> Also if you weren’t the person who paid the phone bill, it was often presented to you as a more parsimonious solution to use your feet rather than the telephone.

I don't understand this point. Long-distance calls were frequently billed per call, but of course walking is not a replacement for those. Local calls were typically unlimited for a fixed monthly rate.

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vidarh 10 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> Local calls were typically unlimited for a fixed monthly rate.

Mostly in the US. Today it is more widespread, but it used to be highly unusual.

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gizajob an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

You seem to be completely autistic and determined to raise disputes where none exist.

Maybe in your suburban sprawl where multiple telephones and multiple cars per household are essential necessities because it’s a 90 minute walk to a shop or a friend’s then one would have unlimited local calls but in huge parts of the rest of the world unlimited calling simply wasn’t a thing.

I can’t imagine you get invited to many dinner parties.

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lapcat an hour ago | parent [-]

> You seem to be completely autistic

> I can’t imagine you get invited to many dinner parties.

Please read and respect the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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gizajob an hour ago | parent | next [-]

You’ve broken and disrespected the HN guidelines towards several people throughout this thread so it’s nonsensical to go invoking them at others.

	▲	lapcat 32 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> You’ve broken and disrespected the HN guidelines towards several people throughout this thread How so? At worst, I said "Um". Regardless of what you believe I've done, do you not acknowledge that you ought to follow the guidelines, and that personal insults are unacceptable, blatantly cross the line? The guidelines don't say that you get to violate them if someone else does. It may be hypocritical of me—though I disagree with that here—but in any case it's not nonsensical.

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gravatron 25 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

nah he's right, you seem rather maladjusted.