What's the difference between 1990 and today? AT&T in 1990 was no longer a monopoly; there was competition in long distance, so some calls got through, just as calls went through today on T-Mobile's competetors.
The main difference was expectation. 1990 was still the era of "5 9's" of reliability (99.999% uptime). Telephone services were simply not expected to fail.
We expect phone (and Internet) service today to be MOSTLY reliable, but we're now conditioned not to expect it all the time.
Matt Blaze
npub1js…y93xu
2026-07-28 02:23:15 UTC
in reply to nevent1q…f9s9
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npub1jslger4ddlhwe50rluftrw4k9rjvvz4e9lutj29g45acyl78uwxsty93xuPublished at
2026-07-28 02:23:15 UTCEvent JSON
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